Human Interactions
by PaperKat
Summary: MovieVerse A story about the pitfalls of friendships that don’t fit the norm, of this planet or any other for that matter. Part X Under the desert lies a secret that will both save and haunt those that keep it.
1. Third Wheel

Human Interactions

Third Wheel

By Paperkat

07/16/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

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The mechanical whistle that escaped Bumblebee's still slightly damaged vocal processors simulated a credible human-like sigh. Optimus ceased his study on the World Wide Web and concentrated on his fellow Autobot. Bumblebee had been unusually patient while Ratchet checked and rechecked his vocal processors. Their medic was still trying to isolate why the smallest of their team continued to have fluctuating functional blackouts. The younger Autobot had not complained once about how long he had been forced to endure the exam. Usually by now Bumblebee would have started to whine about the time spent away from his charge.

"If you are that bored, why don't you return to Sam while I process these diagnostics," Ratchet suggested distractedly, his mind already working on the results he had just attained.

"They are 'busy'."

Optimus did not know what was significant about Bumblebee wiggling two of his digits on each of his hands when he said the word 'busy', but he knew the tone. "Is there something the matter Bumblebee?"

His question had the unfortunate side effect of drawing both Ratchet and Ironhide's attention. Optimus could tell right away by Bumblebee's expression that there was indeed something wrong, and wished he had waited until they were alone before inquiring.

"What's the matter, Bee?," Ironhide chuckled, "Is Sam trying to mate with Mikaela again?" Ratchet gave the weapons officer a hard shove with his elbow. Optimus could see by the narrowing of Ratchet's optics that he did not like being reminded of his own social misstep the first time meeting Sam and Mikaela.

Instead of defending Sam or simply ignoring Ironhide's artless comment, like Optimus would have expected, Bumblebee snorted and looked away. "Who knows with those two? They start they stop. It's yes then no. First it's 'Bumblebee let's hang at the lookout'", Optimus adjusted his optics to hide the start he got from hearing Sam's voice come from his friend's vocal processors, but was startled again when Mikaela's voice followed, "'You don't have to stay, Bumblebee'."

The silence was only broken by the whirling of rotors and gears as Optimus, Ironhide and Ratchet exchanged looks over their distraught friends head. When it was clear that neither his medic nor his weapons officer were going to say anything, Optimus gave his own sigh, wondering if the Matrix knew what would be required of him as leader.

"Bumblebee, I know that I have not spent as much time with humans as you have, but what I have seen of the World Wide Web suggests that teenagers seldom know what they want."

"Yes, there are many After School Specials on the subject," Ratchet offered by way of assistance. "It seems that young hormonal humans cannot go long without getting into trouble."

Bumblebee went from sulking to concerned in a nanosecond.

"Bumblebee! Wait!" Optimus yelled after his friend, but Bumblebee was already speeding away.

"Yeah, that was smooth," Ironhide drawled.

"I didn't mean to imply..."

"I know Ratchet. The children probably just wanted some time alone and did not want to hurt Bumblebee's feelings by saying it outright."

Since the last battle with Megatron, Bumblebee had been spending all of his time with Sam. Optimus had a feeling he knew why Bumblebee was so attached to the boy, but he doubted Sam had any knowledge of the depth of the smallest Autobots affection. Optimus made an entry to remind himself to discuss it with Sam, to forestall any damaged feelings if the human unknowingly said the wrong thing.

"Someone should go after him, to stop him, in case they are spending quality hormonal time with each other," Ironhide offered as he took a not so subtle step backward. This time his leader gave him a disapproving look. "I'm just saying..." Optimus then looked to Ratchet.

"I think I have caused enough trouble for one day."

Optimus' second sigh was drowned out during the throws of his transformation into his alternate form. Out in the wilderness that surrounded the town, the two Autobots could go full out, and in a straight, long distance, land race, Optimus was actually the faster of the two. So in short order, Optimus gained enough ground to see his friend in the distance.

"Bumblebee, you are over reacting. Ratchet did not mean for it to sound like the children were in any immediate danger." Optimus knew that Bumblebee could hear him when the unearthly fast Camaro started to slow just a bit.

"What?" Bumblebee asked sounding confused. "Oh, I realized that, but what he said made me reprocess some of my earlier encounters with them. I think that I have over looked some irregularities in their behaviors, because I was, well sulking."

The last part of the confession was very grudgingly given, and Optimus choose not to go into it further. If Bumblebee could see and admit to how he had been acting then that was good enough, but Optimus did try and offer a logical explanation for the irregularities.

"Bumblebee, you know as well as I do that humans are in a constant state of flux, especially their young. They do not have optimal operating parameters as so much as they just have suggested normal ranges. Do you feel that these irregularities in their behaviors are a indication of illness?"

Bumblebee slowed further, allowing his leader to pull up beside him.

"Well, no, but Optimus there just something not right," the concern was easy to hear, and Optimus temporally put aside his jealousy theory to hear Bumblebee out. "Mikaela has been acting strange for a few days now, and I am certained that Sam has tried to lie to me on several occasions."

"Sam? Lie, to you?" Optimus questioned unbelievingly. If there was one thing Optimus was sure of, it was the unending devotion Sam bore for his Guardian.

"Ok, he didn't lie, but he wasn't telling me the truth either, I'm sure of it."

"And Mikaela?"

Bumblebee sighed, "I cannot figure her out on the best of days and now she has become temperamental and anxious… there's just something wrong, I can feel it Optimus."

"I believe you. Do you have a coarse of action?" Optimus inquired, hoping that his friend had not planned on confronting the children direct. If they were reluctant to confide in Bumblebee currently then forcing the situation would not be helpful.

"Yeah, figure out why they're at Mikaela's house instead of at the movie theater like they said."

"Is that what they told you?"

"No, not technically," Bumblebee admitted. "They said they were going to watch a monster movie marathon, and that I should go visit Ratchet for a check-up instead of waiting around for them. I thought that meant that they would be inside a theater, since I watch whatever they're watching when they are at home."

"How do you know that they are at Mikaela's?" Optimus wanted to know.

"I placed visual and audio relay sensors around their houses and at the school," Bumblebee must have taken Optimus' silence for a reprimand, because he was quick to defend his actions. "What was I suppose to do Optimus? Communication between ourselves is intermittent as it is. How would we be able to tell if they were in trouble or if something happened to them, especially if we are not to reveal ourselves to their parents?"

"It's alright, Bumblebee. I understand. But, I see what you mean. They do seem to be engaging in subterfuge."

Optimus wasn't surprised that Bumblebee had established remote surveillance of his human friend. After all, while in the city they were forced to assume their alternate forms most of the time and that diminished their sensors somewhat, and he was sure that Bumblebee wouldn't let anything fall to chance with his Sam. However, Optimus was mildly surprised that the surveillance extended to Mikaela's domicile, as the children were either with Bumblebee or at Sam's home when together. Perhaps, he had miscalculated Bumblebee the reason for his friend's attachment to Sam.

With a minor adjustment, Optimus patched into the narrow band signal that he detected Bumblebee monitoring. The connection allowed him to see and hear what was going on in the alley behind Mikaela's home. Not wanting to deal with the possibility of detection, Bumblebee and Optimus came to a stop just outside the city to conduct their surveillance.

The alleyway was small, too small for a vehicle of Optimus' size to navigate comfortably, but just big enough for the elderly looking truck that was parked up on lifts with its hood up. The human that had been lying under the engine rolled out on a wheeled platform and sat up. Optimus could hardly recognize the human female. Her long hair was twisted into a nest of hair at the back of her neck, and her feminine curves were completely obscured by a baggy dark blue suit. Mikaela swiped her hand across her brow before throwing a dirty rag at the bumper of the truck.

"Arrgh! I don't know why guys seem to think trucks are indestructible just because they have four wheel drive."

The back door to Mikaela's home slammed shut, as Sam left the domicile with a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a box in the other.

"Probably because they never show them breaking down in commercials," Sam offered as he placed the box on the top of a garbage can and the food on top of it.

"But look at this!" Mikaela continued, pointing accusingly at the truck. "The carburetor is full of muck, so is the oil pan, and there's grass in the air filter, how the hell did they get grass in the air filter?!" Mikaela exclaimed as she kicked the low-wheeled platform.

"She sounds a lot like Ratchet, doesn't she?" Bumblebee asked and Optimus had to agree. Their medic did not suffer foolishness when it came to maintenance. While Sam's girlfriend had been complaining about the condition of the vehicle, Sam had walked back into the house and was now dragging a bright orange cord behind him.

"Talent?" Sam offered by way of an explanation for the trucks condition. To Optimus it seemed to only anger the female more. Of course if Ratchet was to be believe human females only had two weeks of clear rational thought during their reproductive cycle.

"If you're not going to help…" Mikaela threatened with a newly acquired tool in her hand.

"I'll help, I'll help, just give me a minute…" Sam told her, his focus on the box in front of him.

Sam fiddled with the cord and the box until suddenly it flared to life and revealed itself to be a portable television. The picture was colorless and rolled at a consistent rate upward. Optimus failed to see how it could be much entertainment if it did not function properly.

"What are you doing?" the human female demanded, but most of the heat of her anger was already evaporated.

"We told Bee we were going to watch the marathon," Sam replied, hitting the side of the box and succeeded in slowing the flipping to something more tolerable, "and we're going to watch the marathon."

"So they did intentionally mislead you," Optimus commented.

"But, why? They are not doing anything that human's would consider private."

Mikaela smiled at Sam's back as he continued to adjust the human device with taps and shakes. The forgotten plate of sandwiches would have slid to the ground if Mikaela had not have rescued it.

"I don't think you're going to get it to come in any clearer than that, Sam."

Sam shrugged his shoulder in something that could have been interpreted as agreement before taking the plate from Mikaela and choosing a sandwich. "Doesn't matter as long as we can truthfully say we watched the marathon."

"Well, we're going to have to listen to most of it if we're going to get this truck done before Bumblebee gets back." Mikaela told Sam as the boy devoured his food item.

"Do you think they believe that I would be upset that they are working on that earth vehicle?" Bumble asked with surprise.

"It is possible that they think that you would feel jealous of the attention being given," Optimus suggested.

"But it's just a truck! It doesn't even have a radio Optimus. It would be like being jealous of a toaster."

Optimus had to chuckle at that. "Bumblebee, until very recently those children had no knowledge of life beyond their own planet, let alone non-organic beings such as ourselves. Who's to say what they think would offend us?"

"Well, if that is all it is. I will clear it up with them at the first opportunity."

During his conversation with Bumblebee, Mikaela had walked back to the truck and had attempted to remove a bolt from a section of the vehicle. She had made several valiant efforts to remove the rusted part. When she exerted too much force on the unmovable bolt, her hands slipped and Optimus saw her injure her fingers on a near by piece of engine.

"Well, are you going to help or watch the TV the whole time," she demanded angrily as she examined the damage to her hand.

"I'll help, as long as you promise not to yell at me for not knowing what to do," Sam said quickly, with what Optimus thought was a bit of fear in his voice.

"I don't do that."

"Yeah, and Bumblebee's a tricycle," Sam muttered almost too low for the audio to pick up. As occupied as Sam was with the last of his sandwich and the TV, he didn't see Mikaela's face fall.

"Have I really been that bad?" She asked her boyfriend as he continued to fiddle.

"Nah, but you could give Ratchet a run for his money," the expression in Mikaela's eyes went from meek to furious in a spark jump, but Sam was oblivious. "Never seen anyone as Teed off as he was when Bee didn't show for his diagnostics."

"Don't compare me," Mikaela started, bringing her wrench down on the rusted bolt like a hammer, Optimus winced in sympathy, "to that holier than thou," sparks started to fly when the rust was beaten away and clean metal was exposed, "poor excuse for a…"

"Hey, hey, calm down! I think it's already dead!" Sam exclaimed as he snuck behind his girlfriend and wrestled the wrench from her grasp. Now deprived of her weapon, Mikaela stomped a few steps away only to come storming back.

"He thinks just because we're 'organic'", Optimus took note of the wiggling of her two digits on each hand and found it very interesting that Bumblebee must have copied the gesture from Mikaela and not Sam, "that we don't have anything useful to contribute, that our puny little human minds couldn't possibly understand Cybertonian internal workings." Having been relieved of her wrench, Mikaela went to a large tool box beside the truck to attain another one. "If he's so perfect, why does Bumblebee still play Billy Ocean every time he wants to go for a ride."

It amused Optimus to see Bumblebee shudder at that revelation.

"Bee does that on purpose because it makes you blush. Besides, in Ratchet's defense, wouldn't one of us working on one of them be kinda like doing open heart surgery with only a merit badge in first aid?" Sam commented, adding an extra silent editorial by looking pointedly at the broken bolt. It was lost on Mikaela.

"But that's my point! I know I can't possibly know as much as Ratchet does no matter how long I work at it," suddenly it seemed like all the energy left her, and she turned away from Sam and towards the visual surveillance, "But what if he's not around or not functioning, and... and one of them needed a robotic tourniquet, or a transfusion, or CPR…"

"Mikaela, you are not giving mouth-to-mouth to my car," Sam told her with a very amused chuckle. "You're just jealous that there's someone around that knows more about cars than you do." Mikaela actually flinched at that comment, and Sam noticed too. He walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Ok, sorry. Griming up, becoming as serious as a heart attack," Instead of comforting her, Sam's attempt at humor upset her further. Optimus could see the start of tears down her face. Sam didn't notice she was crying until Mikaela let out a choked sop. Sam turned her around to face him.

"Hey, whoa, stop come here. This is more than just Ratchet giving you the cold shoulder the other day."

Optimus recalled the incident that Sam was referring to. Ratchet and Mikaela had gotten into a heated discussion over the events of the final battle. In short, the Autobot's medic had reprimanded the human girl and Bumblebee for returning to the battle in the condition they were in at the time. Optimus had thought he had settled that issue, but apparently he had not.

"Tell me what's really wrong, Mikaela?" Sam entreated, folding Mikaela's head under his chin and rubbed his hands along her back. With out her height enhancing footwear, Sam was actually the same height as his girlfriend.

"I really thought that they were going to kill him right in front of us," she mumbled into Sam's chest.

That seemed to surprise Sam, and he stood still for a few moments before responding.

"You mean Bumblebee? Yeah, me too," Sam also seemed to be on the verge of an emotional release himself, but Optimus observed him straightening himself and pushing Mikaela away enough to look her in the eye. "But he was all right. Ok, maybe not all right but he wasn't permanently damaged."

Again Sam's slight attempt at humor did not sooth the girl.

"And then, in the city, and his legs…" Mikaela's voice failed her and she pulled away from her boyfriend completely. She hugged her arms around herself and wouldn't look at Sam. "I didn't know what to do. He was in so much pain and still wouldn't give up, and there wasn't anything I could do. I couldn't even tell if he was dying or not."

"Hey, hey, stop that," Again Sam grabbed ahold of her shoulders but this time he have her a gentle shake as he had done the television. "The way I remember it, I was the one that fell apart and you were the one that kept your cool and got Bee out of there."

"That is true Optimus," Bumblebee stated with no small about of pride. Optimus resolved himself to observe his friend and the children's interactions with more detail in the future. It would seem that Bumblebee was in a far more a complicated situation than Optimus had originally deduced. But the leader of the Earthbound Autobots attention was drawn back to the audio/visual surveillance by Mikaela's bitter retort to Sam comforting words.

"Yeah, then I turned around and put him right back into the line of fire, endangering him further."

"That's not true!" both Bumblebee and Sam exclaimed at once, but knowing that he could not be heard, the Autobot fell silent and the human continued.

"You heard what Optimus said. The two of you did the right thing. If it weren't for you and Bumblebee a lot more people would have been killed. And Ratchet knows that too, no matter what he said the other day, but now that the danger's past, he has the luxury to complain about the things that didn't go right."

If it was possible for a semi-truck to sit up and take notice, Optimus did then. He had not realized how cognizant the boy was to Ratchet's personality. In two neat sentences Sam had quite neatly summed up the situation. The Autobot medic was a soldier out of necessity. If it were up to Ratchet's will alone, he would have never allowed himself to be fitting with weapons. But Ratchet knew that if he was ever going to see an end to the number of patients he would see or the number of friends he would loose, this war had to end. And with that end now so close at hand, Ratchet was more protective than ever about his patients.

But Sam was not done comforting his female, and this time the humor that was so centrical to his nature showed through with the correct results.

"Let's just call it Ratchet's feminine side."

Bumblebee chuckled himself as Mikaela pulled completely away from Sam and gave him an amused glare.

"You know I was this close to admiring your insight and sensitivity." Sam only shrugged and grinned. Mikaela turned back to the truck she had been working on and quickly wiped the tears from her face.

"Wait a minute," Sam asked in stunned realization. "Is this why we're working our collective asses off for a present for Bee? Because you feel guilty about strapping him to a tow truck and racing around the city backwards saving the world?"

"For me? But..." Bumblebee stuttered to a stop before he could even get going.

"It would seem to me that you have worried yourself into ruining your own surprise," Optimus told his friend.

"The way I remember it," Mikaela told her boyfriend, smiled knowingly, "you were the one that saved the world."

Sam did not take the admiration gracefully, and Optimus was again astounded by the boy's humility as Sam blushed and tried to hide his discomfort by shrugging and laughing weakly. There were many who would bask in the glow of their victory, but Sam seemed to wish that it be forgotten.

"Yeah, well, let's just call it a team effort." He gave Mikaela a hug. "Feeling better now?" She smiled and nodded. "That's my girl, well why don't you finish up here and I'll…"

Sam didn't get more than two steps before Mikaela pulled him back by gripping his ear between her thumb and finger. Sam protested loudly, but made no attempt to escape.

"Oh, no you don't Witwicky you promised to help."

From his comically bent over position, Sam looked up at his girlfriend pleadingly and Optimus knew that Sam's trademark humor was back to its fullest.

"You did actually see what happened when I tried to put the new grill together, right? Flames, fire trucks, mass hysteria on a cosmic scale."

"It was not quite that bad," Bumblebee grumbled defending Sam against himself. "They only needed one extinguisher to put out the rose bushes."

Mikaela let him go with a fake huff.

"I see your point, ok then you're going to have to do the parts run while I work on taking this apart."

"Gottcha, I'll just contact Bee, and…"

"Do the words 'surprise party' mean nothing to you?" Mikaela's voice was starting to take on the edge of real exasperation. A tone that the alien autonomous metallic life forms had learned in sort order to be wary of, but somehow the human male seems to be completely ignorant of.

"I think he'll be surprised enough seeing as he doesn't actually have a birthday," Sam tried to reason, but Mikaela's stance remain stern and unmoveable, she even tapped her wrench against her shoulder as she glared at Sam. "Ok, ok, I'll borrow my dad's car, just put the wrench down slowly."

"I think it would be best if we leave the children to their activities," Optimus suggested as he pulled away to return to Ratchet and Ironhide's location.

"But," Bumblebee protested even as he followed, "I still do not know what they are planning."

"Let them have their surprise Bumblebee. They only wish to show their fondness in their native way. You should be pleased that they feel as though you are one of their own." Optimus pushed aside his own feelings of melancholy. It had been a very long time since anyone had included him in such a frivolous act of affection.

"I wonder what they're going to get me," Bumblebee wondered out loud.


	2. A Physician’s Oath

1Human Interactions

A Physician's Oath

By Paperkat

07/18/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

Author's note: I've attempted to give Ironhide back some of his drawl. I know it's not MovieVerse but I have a hard time hearing him any other way.

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"I do not understand Ratchet. Why are you against this idea?" Optimus asked the Autobot's medic.

Ironhide had been listening with only half of his audio, but Ratchet's next outburst made the weapons officer actually flinch with surprise.

"Oh, I don't know Optimus. Maybe because it is completely insane!" The only sound in the resulting silence was that of Bumblebee's antenna retreating to their off-line position. Ironhide couldn't blame the kid, if he could shut down his sensors as easily he would have. It was rare to see Optimus so angered that he needed a moment to collect himself before continuing.

"I do not want to make this an order Ratchet, but unless you can give me a reasonable and rational reason why this is such an insane proposition it will become one." At that point Ironhide could sense Optimus' internal cooling take affect, and their leader continued in a much colder tone. "And to that end I expect a full Railen Report on your position in the next 24 Earth hours, is that understood?"

The tension grew when there wasn't an immediate response. But before Optimus was forced to ask a second time, Ratchet answered.

"Yes, sir," was the medic's clipped reply.

With no further comment, Optimus transformed and rolled out. Moments later, Bumblebee edged away and then transformed, but apparently he had his own piece to say in the matter. Before he put himself into full throttle, the cocky little bot rolled down his windows and blared an Earth tune from his speakers.

"_Breaking rocks in the hot sun, I fought the law and the law won, I fought the law and the law won..._"

"Don't you think I don't know where Optimus got that foolish idea!" Ratchet bellowed back. Stomping to his newly built workbench, Ratchet began roughly opening and slamming compartments. It was quite obvious once he began muttering in his native language that Ratchet had forgotten that Ironhide was there. The weapons officer had gotten use to that kind of thing happening ages ago. Everyone seemed to be surprised that he could be both quite and reserved, which had the side effect of rendering him completely invisible most of the time. Ironhide grumbled to himself about the unfairness of type casting. He didn't always threaten beings with termination, just the ones that really deserved it.

Ironhide reflected on Optimus' request of Ratchet while he examined every nuance of his canons for flaws. The request was simple really, nothing that Ratchet hadn't done with other green recruits, but his long time friend had reacted as if Optimus had asked his medical officer to recruit Frenzy as his assisting nurse. Ironhide saw no harm in educating the children in Cybertronian physiology. It wasn't as if they could research it themselves on the World Wide Web.

From a tactical point of view, it would give the children at least some chance against a mech. He had already observed with Captain Lennox's successful attack on Blackout, how even the smallest bits of Intel could be put to their advantage. He had even entertained the idea of training Sam and Mikaela in self-defense. Both of them had proven his own personal motto to be true; there simply was no replacement for guts.

_If only we had had more citizens with the spark of those two humans_, Ironhide thought to himself. Or soldiers, like Lennox and his team, that knew when doing the right thing was more important than following orders. The battle for the Docks would have gone much differently.

Ironhide filed away those thoughts in a place he buried all things that he could not change and focused on the battle at hand. Optimus' request wasn't unreasonable, and Ironhide had it in his processor to find out why Ratchet seemed to think it was. Then after that, he was going to get Ratchet to change his mind.

By now Ratchet had throttled down considerably and was seemingly calmly sorting equipment and parts into their new storage compartments, but there was one thing that Transformers knew intimately. Looks were deceiving. And nothing showed that better than Ratchet's reaction to Ironhide's comment.

"A full Railen Report, eh? That's pretty harsh."

The flux rod in Ratchet's hand snapped in two, when the medic jumped. Ratchet's system took in a massive amount of air before expelling it in a rush that blew several spools of wire off the bench he was working at.

"It should not be that bad," Ratchet replied tightly as he searched the workbench for the tool needed to fix the flux rod. "I could fill several million taraquads with just how irrational it is to teach those children how to, quite literally, monkey around with our insides."

Ironhide gave a short jovial laugh. "Ain't that the truth. Especially with how Mikaela screwed up rescuing Bumblebee."

"Exactly," Ratchet agreed. Ironhide was a bit taken aback by Ratchet's quick agreement. _He_ was the one known for being crude and rude, Ratchet was just blunt to the point of being painful. For him to be so caustic meant that Ratchet was still defensive from his earlier reprimand from Optimus. So instead of a direct frontal assault, Ironhide opted for a flanking maneuver.

"If they had've just gotten out of the way quicker, I wouldn't have had to order Bumblebee to help me block Starscream's missile and he wouldn't have gotten hurt at all," Ironhide continued, taking note that Ratchet had paused over the tool he had been looking for before picking it up.

"You did what you had to do, Ironhide. You were under orders to protect the humans."

"Yeah, I know, I know." Ironhide continued, pleased that the conversation was shaping up as he expected. "But standing there, seein' Bumblebee crawling on his hands and knees trying to get to the boy. I gotta tell ya, I blew hot. And then when Mikaela took off…"

Ironhide let the statement hang there for a moment, wondering if Ratchet's unconscious need to protect those that could not defend themselves would surface. Ironhide wasn't disappointed.

"She was retrieving that Earth vehicle made for transporting other non-functioning vehicles," Ratchet reminded him stiffly, the tool in his hand flaring to life and adding a hum to their conversation.

"Oh, yeah. You're right." Ironhide gave a _hurmph_, but never took his sensors off of Ratchet. "My time logs must have gotten scrambled during the attack, there was so much going on, didn't know where to look for the next attack."

For a few moments there was only the soft purr of Ratchet's device and the high pitched whir of Ironhide's canons shifting configurations so that he could examine every part. When he was sure that Ratchet was finished repairing the flux tube, Ironhide went in for another assault.

"Still," Ironhide continued, smiling at Ratchet's back as he paused in placing the flux tube in its appropriate compartment to listen. "I don't know what got into that mush humans call a brain of hers to come back. I mean, what if Bumblebee had a major energon leak or hydro hemorrhage. It could have killed him."

"Actually, he did have a severe hemorrhage," Ratchet informed him needlessly. Ironhide knew full well the injuries Bumblebee had sustained; he had just been unable to assist the young bot at the time.

"Oh, really. Then I guess it's a good thing he was conscious to use his MedSear. Wasn't like the humans were going to do anything for him," Ironhide responded, pushing his friend just a little bit more.

"Yes, well, they wouldn't have known how to use the MedSear even if they had found it in Bumblebee's emergency repair compartment."

"That's true, that's true. Hell, given Mikaela's track record she'd probably melt Bee's leg to his aft. Sam told me that she actually attacked Frenzy with a reciprocating saw, and didn't even go for his spark!" Ironhide informed Ratchet. "Just chopped his arms and head off. Every bot knows his spark's behind his eyes."

"Well it was an understandable mistake. Even our kind cannot usually survive decapitation," Ratchet stopped his sorting to turn around and face Ironhide. "Isn't that how Frenzy was able to infiltrate the base on Selnose Five?"

That made Ironhide pause. He hadn't expected Ratchet to actually participate in a real conversation. Ironhide had been so intent on his mission that the question completely caught him off guard.

"Oh, yeah, I remember." This time Ironhide wasn't play-acting, he really had forgotten about that incident. He needed to get Ratchet to look into his memory recall algorithms, but that was for another time.

"Poor Jazz," Ironhide said, his recall of the event coming in clearer focus. "He was such a youngling back then," the two old friends shared a comfortable laugh. "He really thought he'd earn his passage with that one."

"Only to find out that Frenzy was far from deactivated," Ratchet said folding his arms comfortably across his chest, the brightness returning to his optics. "He almost shut down the defense grid before Optimus stopped him."

"Yup, a boot to the cranium all the way to the asteroid belt and still that little creep survived. I don't know who his maker was, but he's only one cronite from being a synthoid roach that's for sure."

Then all at once the humor was gone from Ratchet's optics. The medic turned back around and started sorting again and Ironhide cursed himself for his lack of sensitivity. He knew how upset Ratchet got about topics of creators, now he had put the whole mission in jeopardy. Ironhide was trying to find a way to loop the conversation back to the humans when Ratchet spoke.

"Jazz would have lived if he had been put in emergency stasis."

"He went off-line too quickly, Ratchet," Ironhide reminded, trying to comfort his friend, forgetting about his own agenda for the moment. "None of us were in the area, there wasn't anything any of us could have done." Again there was a long pause before Ratchet responded.

"I looked at his last data load," the medic confessed quietly.

Ironhide was so surprised by Ratchet's violation of etiquette; he couldn't stop the reproachful tone from coloring his voice.

"Ratchet…"

The Autobot medic abruptly stood, confronting Ironhide openly.

"I know that right is reserved for their creator, their Bonded or their Second," Ratchet acknowledged heatedly. "But we may never see another of our kind again let alone his creator and you and I know Jazz had no Bonded or Second. The data was corrupted, degrading, and someone had to…" Ratchet stopped, his vocal compositor softened to the barest of whispers. "I had to know what his final wishes were."

Ironhide couldn't bring himself to harbor any ill will towards Ratchet for his breach of protocol. How many times had he left a fellow Autobot behind, knowing that there would be no hope for Final Closure? How many times had he been forced to place the needs of the living over that of the dead, knowing they may never find the peace they desired in their last moments?

"What was it?" Ironhide asked.

"Only some human drivel about living fast, dying young and leaving a good looking corpse." Ironhide chuckled at that.

"Sounds about right. I had wondered why you repaired his body and set him in his alternate form."

"I believe that would have been what he wanted," Ratchet said as he returned to his workbench. Looking more calm and relaxed now that his secret had been told. "He was very pleased with his last alternate appearance. More so than he had been with any other."

The two friends lapsed into a reflective silence. Ironhide pretending to fix invisible flaws in his canons, Ratchet pretending that he cared where all of his bits and pieces were stored away. Ratchet finally broke the silence.

"I know what you have been up to, and I actually do have a rational for not letting the children work on our systems," the medic told him tersely, seeming to brace himself for a confrontation.

"I'm sure you do Ratchet," Ironhide replied with true sincerity, and Ratchet responded by relaxing his posture.

"Do you know how little force it would take to crush or sever human fingers? All it would take is a spark jump of involuntary reflexive movement while their hands were inside," Ratchet informed him. "With an Autobot Optimus' size, they would have to climb almost completely inside."

Ratchet didn't have to finish the scenario for Ironhide. He could quite plainly imagine the implications.

"Then teach them how to disable the nerve relays," Ironhide told the medic. "You do it all the time with the severely injured yourself, or for delicate procedures, and they would qualify as delicate."

Presenting a logical solution to Ratchet's problem seemed to frustrate the medic. Once again he abandoned his sorting to confront Ironhide directly.

"Well, what about an energon leak?" Ratchet asked with no small amount of superiority in his tone. "It's pure energy. It would probably sear through their flesh before they even knew it was there."

"Energon is pretty easy to identify," Ironhide needlessly informed Ratchet. In all of its forms, energon glowed with very distinctive warmth that would be hard to miss, even with human's limited visual acuity and senses. "They should be able to easily avoid it and if they couldn't, a simple irradiator would remove small amounts of energon if it was in their way. It would take some effort to make one small enough for them to operate, but not impossible."

Ratchet now refused to look in his direction.

"Hydo fluid is poisonous to humans," came the medic's haughty retort.

"They're not going to drink it Ratchet!" Ironhide boomed, now becoming frustrated at the ridiculousness of Ratchet's supposed reasons.

"There is a possibility of accidental ingestion,' Ratchet continued on, sounding as infantile as a sparkling. Ironhide just continued to glare at his friend, and Ratchet wilted just a bit before giving a weak defense. "They're always putting things in their mouths."

"By Primus, what's gotten into you Ratchet?!" Ironhide exclaimed. "If this is all you have to put into your report, it's going to be a long 24 hours."

"Fine, you want the real reason they should not service us in anyway, and probably not even be in our presence at all?!" the medic yelled back. "Our systems produce large amounts of radiation, alright! Humans are highly sensitive to seemingly all forms of radiation. They can even get cancer from the light of their own slagging sun!" Ratchet immediately turned back around to face his workbench.

It took a moment for Ironhide to look up 'cancer' from the World Wide Web to understand the implications of what Ratchet had told him. Even with his limited knowledge of things medical it didn't look good to Ironhide.

"You really believe that it could harm the children?"

Ratchet had calmed back down again, but he kept his back to Ironhide.

"I don't know for sure, but there doesn't seem to be much that can't harm them."

"But Sector Seven had Megatron for more than one human lifetime?" Ironhide tried to argue. "All of them are functioning properly."

"I wouldn't exactly classify Agent Simmons as functioning properly," Ratchet corrected offhandedly before explaining his position. "Megatron was frozen solid, on limited energon reserves and in emergency stasis. He was one of the most heavily armored mechs save a Supreme I have ever come across. It is possible that all of those factors combined may have protected the humans, but who knows. It's not like Sector Seven was happily passing out Intel when they were disbanded."

"I will contact Captain Lennox," Ironhide offered, but Ratchet was already shaking his head.

"He would not have the authority for that kind of information," Ratchet protested.

"Then get Optimus to contact Secretary Keller, for Primus sake!"

Ratchet responded to the escalation of Ironhide's frustration by bringing his fists down on the workbench with a resounding crash.

"Don't you think I already thought of that?!"

"Then why didn't you say something to Optimus earlier?!"

"Because I did not want Bumblebee to know!"

Ironhide felt his spark jump. Ratchet couldn't possibly be thinking…

"I have never seen Bumblebee attach to anyone as completely and quickly as he has to Sam," Ratchet said quietly. "It's going to be hard enough if Sam dies of old age, but if his life is shortened by simply being with Bumblebee, what do you think that would do to him?"

Ironhide didn't know how to respond but he knew the answer. It would destroy Bumblebee to find out he had harmed Sam, in anyway, even unintentionally. Ratchet must not have expected a reply because he continued.

"The humans have an oath much like the one I took when I first joined the medical profession," Ratchet's voice sounded as far away as the focus of his optics. "'Above all else, do no harm'. Everywhere we've gone, every world we've touched, we brought our war and its death and its destruction." Ratchets frame slumped where he sat. "The very kindness and compassion that ended our war may very well kill them in the end."

Ironhide returned his canon to the interior of his arm and approached Ratchet. The Autobot medic didn't turn around or even acknowledge the hand Ironhide placed on his shoulder.

"I'm only going to say one thing and then I'll leave you alone. I want you to think about this, Ratchet. Sam never stopped until he got Bumblebee away from his government. Which is more than we can say. He completely ignored Optimus' order to place the Allspark into his chest, having no idea, and not caring, what might happen to him. Mikaela conducted herself more honorably and courageously than some of the trained warriors I have had under my command, without even being asked. Do you really think that you're going to be able to stop them just by telling them 'no'?"

Ironhide left his friend there in the silence, and wondered if he had just help their human friends or condemned them.


	3. Operating Conditions

Human Interactions

Operating Conditions

By Paperkat

07/26/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

"I don't know what you want me to say," Mikaela confessed hesitantly, clearly reluctant to hurt his feelings. The uneasy feeling in the pit of Sam's stomach that had started when Mikaela had shown up just got ten times worse. Mikaela was always straightforward, she never hedged, but right now she was hiding behind the biggest bush he'd ever seen.

"Just give it to me straight, I'm man enough to take it," Sam fibbed smoothly, refusing to acknowledge the male beside him, as he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"Come on, just say it. Me or him."

Mikaela narrowed her beautiful grey eyes at the command. No body, but no body told Miss Banes what to do. "Both of you actually," she snapped, her tone icy and curt.

"Alright!" Miles exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air and then slugging Sam with it afterwards. "We passed!"

Mikaela give that tight-lipped, full tooth smile that Sam knew meant that not only was everything not 'alright', it was worse. The gorgeous girl in front of him sunk his sinking suspicions.

"You both failed."

"What?!" Miles exclaimed, slapping both hands on top the long, blonde mop he called hair before throwing his hand back to whine at the sky. "But we studied and everything!"

Sam wasn't going to call staying up all night trying to get the Playboy channel to come in clearly, studying, but he sure as hell wasn't going to confess to what it really was in front of Mikaela. He should have taken Bumblebee's offer to help him study for his history test, instead of letting himself be guilted into 'studying' with Miles.

"According to these test results it wasn't enough. Sorry guys," Mikaela said, smiling apologetically only to Sam, which bolstered his spirits and his ego, until she gave him his test paper. Now he wished that he had waited until Monday to find out his fate instead of allowing Mikaela to pick up his test at the same time she picked up her own.

"How'd you do?" He had to ask, and once again that hedge Mikaela had been hiding behind was back.

"Well enough to opt out of the final," she said with a shrug. Behind her, parked inconspicuously in the driveway, well as inconspicuously as a bright, laser yellow and black striped tricked out Camaro could be, Sam's Guardian, friend and car gave a shutter to get his attention. Once Sam looked in Bumblebee's direction, the Autobot twisted his antenna into a lopsided 'A' and then reformed it into a '+'.

_Figures_, Sam grumbled to himself. Mikaela had been wiser in her study partner than he had been, and Bumblebee was gloating. Or at lease, Sam thought he was gloating. It was hard to tell with Bumblebee stuck in OCM, also know as, Ordinary Car Mode for those that failed to keep up with the acronyms.

"Guess we better pull another all nighter," Miles said with a 'wink-wink', 'nudge-nudge' that even made Sam cringe at its obviousness.

"Yeah, I better go…" Mikaela said trailing off, making it known with a look of patent disgust in the blonde's direction that she'd rather be anywhere but with Miles.

"No!" Sam cried desperately, grabbing a hold of Mikaela's slender wrist. Between the 'study session' with Miles, the extra work Mikaela had doing for Bumblebee's present and Sam's own part-time job the two of them hadn't been spending a whole lot of time together.

"She can come with," Miles offered with a leer that was just as transparent as his 'wink-wink', 'nudge-nudge' had been.

"No!" Sam repeated, this time for Miles. His human friend gave him a dirty look.

"It's just that… I…uh… that is you…" Sam stuttered, trying to come up with something that would keep Mikaela here, despite Miles' presents.

With trademark perfect timing, his Camaro's radio 'malfunctioned'.

"_Give a little bit. Give a little bit of your time to me…_" the Goo Goo Dolls called from within the car.

Mikaela flashed him that brilliant 'my boyfriend's a dork, but I think he's cute anyway' smile, or was it the 'my boyfriend's a dork, but I think his car is cute' smile Sam wasn't quite sure. Without missing a beat or letting Miles say anything about the possessed car, Mikaela smoothly supplied a response for Sam.

"I said I was going to wash the car," she told him, as if she had just remember a forgotten promise. "I'm sorry Sam, it must have slipped my mind. It shouldn't take too long, wait for me, 'k?"

With his back to Miles, Sam mouthed the words 'thank you' over and other again. He really didn't want her to leave just yet. Mikaela grabbed her purse slash backpack, and gave him a quick kiss before heading to the house.

"I was wrong," Miles said, watching Mikaela walk away with too much interest for Sam's liking, "She isn't an evil jock concubine. She's an evil muscle car concubine."

Sam frowned, but Miles was completely oblivious as he sat himself down in the only shaded chair on the patio. It had become increasingly clear in the weeks since Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots had entered Sam's life that his friendship with Miles was anything but rock solid.

If he was truthful with himself, something he rarely did because it tended to be embarrassing, Sam would have to admit that his friendship with Miles was based more on need than true affection. They had been two kids too off beat to fit into any of the clicks and had naturally gravitated to each other. A couple of weeks ago, Sam would have said that Miles was his best friend, his only friend really. But now, everything was different.

Sam had been there to see how close they had gotten, how close the whole world had gotten to being destroyed. He had held one of the most powerful forces of life in the universe when it had inadvertently sparked life. And it was still in his hands when he had destroyed it and one of its creations. Somehow, worrying about getting a clear picture on a pirated cable station didn't hold the same appeal anymore.

But in all fairness Miles hadn't been through what he had. And most of the world didn't know the truth about Mission City. Sam couldn't fault Miles for staying the same just because his whole life had changed.

Sam took a chair next to Miles and pulled out his pitifully thin binder of notes for the year and tried to share them with Miles, whom he had found out during the previous 'study session' had none at all. Miles was at that moment trying to balance a pencil on the bridge of his nose and thankfully missed Mikaela's reemergence from the house.

Mikaela had changed into a modest dark blue bikini and a cover up, if you could call a doily in shirt form with quarter sized holes a cover up. Perfectly sensible attire for washing a car on a warm, late spring day, and completely devastating to a teenage boy trying to study for a history exam. Mikaela had taken to carrying bathing clothes in her backpack. They always seemed to end up at the far end of the lake where Bumblebee could stretch out and be hidden in the dense trees when they were out riding around. It just made sense to always have bathing suits and a towel on hand, and Sam wasn't about to complain.

In Mikaela's right hand was a bucket full of supplies and in her left was Mojo. The Chihuahua was sporting the new collar Mikaela had bought him. The only thing that made it different from just a regular collar was the inscribed metal plate bolted to it, which advised to you to; 'if found' to mail Mojo to their address and a picture of a postage stamp. His father thought it was hilarious; his mother loved it, probably because it came from Mikaela and Sam was just relieved there wasn't a rhinestone in sight.

The music Bumblebee had started to play earlier had never stopped and had decreased in volume to be little more than background noise, but Sam could just make out that his Guardian had abruptly switched to Roy Orbison.

"…_but wait, What do I see? Is she walking back to me? Yeah, she's walking back to me. Oh, oh, Pretty woman_."

The music remained low. That meant it was for Mikaela's ears only. His girlfriend responded by throwing her hip into Bumblebee's backside panel. The sentient car reacted by playing the sound effect of a needle scratching across a record and continuing with the song he had just interrupted. It was one of their 'things'. Bumblebee seemed to try his best to fluster Mikaela when there were witnesses around, so that she couldn't retaliate, but it never stopped her from trying. The two of them had a lot of those kinds of 'things'.

There was that thing they did with the songs. Even though Bee didn't need to communicate with songs and sound bites as much, he still did with Mikaela around. She was so fast at figuring out the meaning Bumblebee was trying to get across that Sam couldn't even identify the song before she would answer back. It reminded Sam of when his parents use to spell everything out when he was a kid at Christmas time and his birthday.

And they were always playing Doctor, or at least that was what Sam called it. They called it 'Autobot Operation' after the kid's game. It was pretty much just like the game. Mikaela would poke around Bumblebee's insides, renaming parts so that she could remember their purpose and function. And just like the game Bumblebee made the buzzing noise and his optics would light up brightly if she strayed too close to anything delicate or vital that neither one of them felt comfortable messing with.

"When are you going to face it man? She's only interested in your car."

Sam was so lost in his daydreaming that he had completely forgotten Miles was even there. "What?" Sam was forced to ask as a delay tactic.

"Isn't it obvious? Look at her."

Sam returned to the activity that he was engaged in before Miles' unwelcome and unbidden observation. Mikaela put her supplies down and unceremoniously dumped Mojo into Bumblebee's front seat. The Camaro immediately switch to 'Who let the Dogs Out?'. Sam knew that Bee really hated Mojo's nails prancing across his seats. The dog didn't seem too pleased either, as the Chihuahua begged piteously from the driver's side window to be let out.

"Are you going to behave?" she asked, and Sam knew she was referring to both the canine and the Cybertonian. Mojo answered with a high pitched squealing bark that was almost drowned out by Bumblebee, who used the barking in the song to respond in a like manner.

Mikaela picked Mojo back up and placed him at her bare feet. As soon as his paws touched the ground, Mojo began to turn circles around Mikaela's feet and the bucket. The vet had said that Mojo was completely normal, but Sam had to wonder. Mojo use to be able to walk in a straight line, now he just seemed to turn tight, right handed circles. Sam attributed to withdrawal symptoms.

"Man, you gotta know," Miles said in a stage whisper, slapping his hand on Sam's shoulder. "She wouldn't give you the time of day if you didn't have that car," Miles told him with something that approached actual sympathy.

_That's not true_, Sam tried to tell himself.

So what if they had been in the same schools and the same classes since they were six and she hadn't recognized him that first day. Sam was sure there were a lot of his schoolmates that had no clue who he was.

What did it matter that just the day before that, Sam had given a class presentation in front of her and she didn't remember. Hey, most of the class hadn't been paying attention either. Hell, he was surprised the teacher stayed awake.

And it didn't prove anything that even Mikaela's boyfriend at the time, Trent, had actually known his name, or at least some version of his name, and had pinged him in the throat with a paperclip, and remembered that he had tried out for football, and…

_I better stop before I give myself a complex_, Sam grumbled. _The guy that hated me knew more about me and paid more attention to me than the girl I was trying to date_.

"Look, Sam, I'm just trying to tell ya. She's bad news, and I can't sit here and watch her tear you apart like a chew toy," Miles told him as he gathered up his stuff. "Look, when you get your priorities straight, come on over. I'm sure I've found a way to get the satellite working again."

Sam didn't watch him leave, but he knew that Miles had ducked out of the whole in the back hedge. He had been doing it for years. Instead Sam focused all his attention on Mikaela and Bumblebee.

Mojo had apparently given up trying to regain Mikaela's attention and had retreated to his birdfeeder/doghouse to watch from above. Buy now, Mikaela had separated all of her supplies and was in the process of wetting Bumblebee's exterior down. When she rounded the corner of the Camaro and crouched down to pay particular attention to Bumblebee's back wheel next to his exhaust, the black striped, bright yellow Autobot blew a puff of something at her with enough force to blow the stream of water from the hose back at her. She gave a screech of outrage as she jumped to her feet.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" Mikaela demanded and was about to shove the water hose up the offending tailpipe when Bumblebee broke out in song.

"…_boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble. (Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back) When you see him comin', better cut on the double_…"

"Sam isn't going to save you Bug-Boy!"

Of course Bumblebee easily avoided being violated by simply rolling back and forth to keep Mikaela from accessing his tailpipe. By now Mojo had joined in and was barking insistently at both the girl and the car from his perch. Bumblebee was actively calling for help, or at least back up.

"_Help, I need somebody, Help, not just anybody, Help, you know I need someone, help__…_"

Sam decided right then and there that there were worst things in the world than having his girlfriend getting along with his best friend. Mikaela was laughing so hard she never saw Sam sneak up behind her, so the ear-shattering squeal she let out when he wrapped his arms around her waist was understandable, if not painful.

Water was flying everywhere as the control of the weapon, otherwise known as the water hose, passed between the two teens. Bumblebee's loyalties and assistance shifted depending on who had possession of said weapon at that moment. And by the time Sam's dad yelled at them to settle down, Sam had worked out whatever little insecurity his overactive mind had come up with. After all it was obvious that Mikaela was dating him, not his car. Wasn't it?


	4. Patient Confidentiality

1Human Interactions

Patient Confidentiality

By Paperkat

07/27/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

Thanks for all the reviews guys! Keep it coming!

Ratchet pulled into the alley behind Mikaela's home and wondered, not for the first time, if he was doing the right thing. It was true that he was under orders from Optimus to substantiate his theories of Cybertonian presence causing harm to humans, but Ratchet was still unsure if his decided course of action was advisable. The Autobot's leader had contacted Defense Secretary Keller, but apparently when their facility had been breached, Sector Seven's protocols had wiped all of their data from their computers, and the former agents of Sector Seven were less than forth coming.

So now Ratchet was left with conducting the research from the offset. He had gone as far as he could from the Cybertonian end, which was to say he reconfirmed all that he knew about his own kind's physiology and all of their sundry radiation emissions. He then compared that to all known radiation research on Earth. So far he had not found a match. Which meant he had to perform tests, and for tests to be conducted he needed test subjects.

Ratchet's motor rumbled with his indecision. It was a logical course of action, to request the aid of one of their human friends, but at the same time it felt so contrary to involve them in something that could be potentially very dangerous. And on top of that it was left to him to decide who would be tested. A decision he did not relish making, mostly because he knew the inevitable conclusion.

Sam was immediately ruled out, because of his constant proximity to Bumblebee. Not only did Ratchet want this research to be kept secret from the younger bot, but he also needed someone that would spend at least a half-day's cycle with no contact with a Cybertonian. Similarly, Captain Lennox, his troops, the Defense Secretary, Maggie Madsen and Glen Whitmann were eliminated as choices due to the lack of Cybertonian contact. With their numbers so few, the Autobots could ill afford to spare even one of them to go live near one of these other humans. There really was only one logical choice, and if he was lucky, her voice would run out before his audio circuit fried.

He and Mikaela had not started on good terms with each other, and though it pained him to admit it, it was mostly, however not entirely, his fault. He had not realized and still did not understand why simple biological facts were embarrassing to humans. What function did it serve for them to not only ignore but also utterly deny the truth about their bodies? But his error in pointing out Sam's high level of hormones was only his first mistake in dealing with Mikaela.

His second, and most damaging mistake had been treating her as if she knew him. It had been natural, almost instinctual for him to lash out at her while he had been working to reattach Bumblebee's legs. It was exactly how he would have treated any of his brothers in arms. He had come to the conclusion long ago that sometimes soldiers needed someone to blame them, or they would blame themselves, and it was easier for them to accept that he forgave them than for them to forgive themselves. Sometimes it was the only balm he had for the wounds no one could see. Unfortunately at this point the habit had become too ingrained to reverse, and Mikaela had received a heavy dose of it.

A crashing noise pulled Ratchet from his musings. The back entrance to Mikaela's home was still quaking as the human teen practically tumbled down the stairs in haste. Instantly alert to a possible situation, Ratchet scanned Mikaela and took note of her vitals. Though her heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and synapses activity were elevated, it wasn't anything Ratchet thought was unhealthy.

A second bang drew Ratchet's attention back to the domicile. An older adult female human had thrown the door open, but had not actually left the building. Ratchet reasoned by the apparent age of the woman and the fact that she seemed to reside with Mikaela, that she was Mikaela's female parent. _Her mother_, Ratchet corrected himself. Sam had become quite irritated when he had used such terminology to describe the boy's mother.

"Don't think I'm going to foot the bill for that Mikaela!" the woman yelled at the girl's back.

"I didn't ask you to!" Mikaela shouted in return as she whipped around to glare. "Look, just drop it, ok? It won't be your problem in six months anyway."

"Thank the Lord for small favors," the woman said sarcastically before adding, "and don't be making all that noise when you come back."

The crash the door made when the older female closed it almost drowned out Mikaela's 'Whatever'. Ratchet had not spent much time with humans but he had seen enough of Mikaela's anger to know that she was very upset. However, before he could make a hasty retreat, she spotted him. Of course it would have been almost impossible for her to miss him, considering his alternate form was florescent yellow with reflective strips down his sides.

For a moment he though she was going to ignore him, which disturbed him more than he thought it should. But Mikaela had never back down to anyone to his knowledge, and with a quick look back towards the house she approached him. Out of habit, Ratchet's scanners catalogued everything about the human in front of him.

"You have endured some form or medical procedure," he blurted out.

"What?" Ratchet was not sure who was more surprised, he or Mikaela. That had not been what he had meant to say. "How did you know?" she asked defensively.

"I detect the presence of pharmaceutical disinfectants, isopropyl alcohol and if I am not mistaken, the bandage on the interior of your elbow indicates that you have had fluid… blood removed for the purposes of analysis." Ratchet was immensely grateful Ironhide was not there to witness him babbling. The weapons officer would have been quite amused at Ratchet's flustered state.

"Yeah, well that was just routine stuff," Mikaela told him, but the way she then covered her bandage with her opposite hand made the Autobot medic suspicious. With little concern for the consequences, Ratchet scanned farther.

"And your body chemistry has been altered. I don't…" but before Ratchet could finish his thought Mikaela interrupted him.

"Look Ratchet, as amusing as my hormones may be to you, I'm not really in the mood to play science fair experiment right now, alright? If you're looking for Bee and Sam they're not here."

"Actually, I've come to speak with you," he told her truthfully leaving out the part where he had contemplated escape. Mikaela seemed very surprised by this, and her answer reflected it.

"Oh."

The silence hung heavy between them. Ratchet remained unmoving while Mikaela's eyes kept settling on his various lights as if trying to determine if any of them would be the equivalent of looking him in the eye. When Mikaela's muscles started to clench in obvious irritation, Ratchet finally got up the nerve to speak.

"May we please go somewhere to talk in private? I have noticed that I seem to draw more attention than the other Autobots in their alternate forms."

Ratchet did not know whether it was compassion for his plight or just relief that he had broke the tension, but Mikaela visibly relaxed and even gave him the smallest of smiles.

"Yeah, sure. I need out of here anyway."

Ratchet had not actually considered the possibility of having to carry Mikaela around inside him until she approached his door, clearly intent on getting inside. He had never had a human, or any other creature for that matter, climb into him before. Optimus had described it as an 'interesting experience' and Ironhide had refused to comment at all. Bumblebee had made some cryptic comment about it being dependant on the human, but wouldn't elaborate.

He was so distracted by thinking about Mikaela entering his cab that he missed her opening his driver's side door and hoisting herself in. When Mikaela attempted to anchor herself to his steering wheel, so that she could lean out and close the door, Ratchet finally reacted by closing it himself.

Whatever he had imagined it would be like was nothing like the actuality of it. Once seated inside, Ratchet's scanners could no longer detect her, and of course his optics were useless in his alternate form and unlike other Autobots his external sensors were very minimal because his scanners were so advanced. So effectively, other than his audio input, he was completely blind to Mikaela's presence.

"Is everything alright?" Mikaela asked hesitantly. The way her voice reverberated within him was quite fascinating. It was almost like he could feel her speaking instead of hearing her speak. It was very reminiscent of the way Cybertonians naturally communicated with each other, except of course she spoke English.

"Yes, everything is fine," Ratchet told her with false confidence. Instead of focusing on the eerie feeling of having her disembodied voice within his own head, Ratchet pulled out of Mikaela's alley and proceeded to drive out of town.

The trip was made in silence and thankfully Mikaela did not wiggle around too much. Her putting on the seat belt had been more than enough sensation for him to deal with. But by the time they made it out of the city, Ratchet had discovered that he could actually feel both the weight and the warmth of Mikaela's body, and while it was no where near as precise or sensitive as his scanners, it was reassuring that he 'knew' where she was.

"I have reversed my position," Ratchet suddenly divulged, not wanting to wait until they stopped to start this conversation.

"And what position would that be?" Mikaela asked, and Ratchet thought she sounded genuinely confused. Which in turn confused him. He had been under the impression that the main reason Mikaela did not like him was because of his refusal to assist her in learning what she had called 'Autobot First Aid'.

"It was not an unreasonable request to learn Cybertonian physiology for the purposes of emergency medical care," Ratchet reminded her.

"Oh that," she said. At that moment Ratchet would have given his high grade ration to be able to confirm with his scanners the flush of nervousness in her voice.

"Yes, that. I believe it could be possible, however I do have several health concerns that I feel need to be addressed. But I now hesitate to start, if you are feeling unwell."

"What this?" Ratchet had to assume that the movement he felt inside was her indicating her bandage. "It's nothing big, it isn't life threatening or anything."

The fact that she had immediately gone to assuring him that it was non-lethal only heightened his suspicions, but he had nothing to confront her with, so Ratchet rechecked the scans he had taken earlier and brought up another worry.

"You have artificially altered your body chemistry. This was not apart of my original protocol outline. These parameters were not accounted for," he told her with mild concern. From what he could tell the change was minor, but conflicted with what he understood to be the human female normal.

"Its just birth control pills Ratchet," she informed him, and again he could just make out nervousness in her voice.

Ratchet processed that information, but was unable to come up with any logical reasons why Mikaela had taken such a measure.

"But oral contraceptives act on the female human reproductive systemto inhibit normal fertility," Ratchet said with confusion. There were a few medical conditions that were treated this way, but Ratchet could not detect these within Mikaela. "It would negate the act of mating. Should you not inform Sam that you…"

Mikaela's response was immediate and loud.

"No! God, no!" She protested. She muttered something to herself that Ratchet just could not make out. "I'd only tell him that if I wanted him to run for the hills."

Quite certain he was going to spend the rest of the evening in a state of utter confusion, Ratchet decided to pull over to give Mikaela his undivided attention.

"I do not understand. Why would Sam run in any direction if you informed him that you are preventing his ability to produce a child."

The concept of disabling the ability to create life was beyond Ratchet capabilities of understanding. He would have been ecstatic to be blessed with the function of reproduction. He had watched others spark new life, and had seen the miracle for what it was. At one time he had thought he was up to the task, but his attempt had been less than successful.

"Look," Mikaela said with a bit of frustration. "The last thing a teenaged boy wants to think about or discuss in detail is a baby or the possibility of a baby."

"Human males do not desire to produce offspring?" How did the species survive if neither the male of the female wished to procreate?

"Not at seventeen they don't!"

"But this is the age where human males are at their prime," Ratchet tried to reason. "It makes no logical sense. You humans act very contrary to your own biology."

"Well, we can't exactly choose the exact moment to bring our offspring on-line," Mikaela told him flippantly.

"Yes, you are not dependent on an external source with which to reproduce, a source that is now destroyed."

Ratchet had not meant to say that and regretted it as soon as the silence fell between them again. It was not Mikaela's fault the Allspark was gone. It really was not even Sam's fault. Optimus had already declared that the Allspark had to be destroyed in order to end the war, but the bitterness Ratchet felt at its loss was still strong.

"I'm sorry I spoke without thinking, Ratchet," Mikaela said quietly. "I didn't mean to make light of your situation."

"As we come from completely different backgrounds it is understandable that certain mistakes will be made." It was Mikaela's turn to sound confused.

"Did you accept my apology or did you just brush me off?"

Ratchet's motor rumbled with amusment.

"Your apology was accepted."

"So, there were some health concerns?" Mikaela prompted.

Ratchet was pleasantly surprised when Mikaela calmly and rationally discussed all of his concerns and the tests he wished to perform. She asked relevant and insightful questions that bolstered his confidence that his plan was the proper course of action.

"I know you said that radiation is your main concern," Mikaela told him "but when we were actually in the dam, I didn't see anything that said 'radioactive'. And believe me I looked. After Simmons used that Geiger counter or whatever it was on Sam and I, I started to wonder if we were going to start growing extra limbs or something."

Neither of the humans had said anything about this previously.

"He used a device to scan you? What did it do?" Ratchet questioned.

"I don't know. It just made clicking noises. Oh! He did say something about 15 RADS. I remember that."

It didn't mean much without an idea of what Simmons was actually scanning for, but he was not going to say so to Mikaela.

"It could be that Sector Seven had already determined that there is no danger," Ratchet said trying to alleviate at least some of Mikaela's fears. "However I would feel more comfortable if I could confirm this for myself. Sector Seven did not give me the impression that their personnel's health and safety was their first concern."

"So let me lay this all out so that we both understand what's happening here," Mikaela suggested.

"Go on," Ratchet encouraged.

"You want me to spend exact amounts of time with and away from Bumblebee, you, Optimus and Ironhide. And during the course of these tests you want me to wear monitors and take biological samples, but you don't want me to tell Bee or Sam."

"Exactly," Ratchet confirmed, delighted that she grasped the concept so perfectly. The delight was short lived.

"It's going to cost you," she told him simply.

Again Ratchet was completely blindsided by the complete illogical turn of events.

"What?"

"Well, you're asking me to potentially lie to them in order to keep it a secret right?" Mikaela asked in a tone that meant she knew exactly that was what could be require, so Ratchet did not bother to answer. And she did not need one. "Well, I want some form of compensation."

"What could you possibly desire as payment?" Ratchet asked completely bewildered.

"What do you know about birthday parties?"


	5. Angels in the Making

Human Interactions

Angels in the Making

By Paperkat

07/29/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

Extra Disclaimer: I am a military dependant but not a military brat. I tried to research the military stuff, but don't get after me if I totally flubbed it up.

It had been almost four months since the Allspark and Megatron had been destroyed. Since then there had been fleeting glimpses of the remaining Decepticons. Not enough to find them, but enough to know they were still near. For practical and safety reasons, Optimus had decided that the _Ark_ would come to Earth. It was something of a joint operation between the US military and the Autobots. Both Optimus and the Defense Secretary Keller thought it would be wise to bring the modest, by Autobot standards, massive by human standards, starship in parts instead of landing it whole in the desert.

Partially because it would make it easier to conceal where its final destination would be and partially because, quite honestly they didn't have anything else to do. So, far the bulk of the transporting had been left to Optimus and Ironhide. Optimus had the expertise to properly dismantle the _Ark_ so that it could be reassembled and Ironhide was hoping that they might met some resistance.

Ratchet had been a flurry of activity, the like of which Bumblebee had never seen before. Configuring and reconfiguring equipment, positioning and repositioning senors, the med bay had been moved no less than four times and Bumblebee had been drafted to help him. Sam called it 'nesting', Bee thought it was pure insanity and when the opportunity came to accompany Optimus to bring back the outer hull, he jumped at the chance. And as guilty as he felt about leaving Sam behind, Bumblebee was glad for the time away from Ratchet and to his surprise the time with Optimus had been more than just pleasant.

Bumblebee had been treated to a side of his leader that he had only seen in brief glimpses over the ages. He reasoned that Optimus must have been one slagpit of a trickster as a youngling. More than a few times, the much older mech had set him up while they had been struggling to force the _Ark_'s hull into form. Hours of work would be undone when he would follow his leader's instructions to the letter only to see the portion of the hull he was working on pop back out to full deployment. It wasn't until the fifth time that Bumblebee finally caught on to what was happening, and called Optimus on it. The perfectly emotionless visage of his leader cracked a smile, 'And here I thought you were the smart one of the group' he had told him.

The resulting scuffle afterwards lasted quite awhile. Optimus was stronger and more tactically minded, but Bumblebee was faster and more agile. And with neither of them using anything close to full force, it was only the need to actually accomplish what they were out there for that stopped them. Yes he had enjoyed the very rare one-on-one time with Optimus, but after four days away, Bumblebee was ready to go home.

The mission should have taken three days tops, one day out, one day there and one day back. But besides the impromptu wrestling match and Optimus abusing his authority, they had been plagued with problems. Bumblebee could not fathom how two separate transfigure units could malfunctioned at the same time, but as a result he and Optimus had to interface directly with the hull to get it to retract into a transportable mode. And it hadn't been easy.

He now had a new respect for the human art form of origami. It seemed like every time he had thought they had the right piece folded to link up to the next piece, nope, wrong answer, thank you for playing. He would never again tease Sam when he was trying to re-pack his book bag.

But now home was in his visual range and Bumblebee had to concentrate not to speed ahead of his laden leader. Ratchet had constructed a trailer for Optimus that would be durable and strong enough to haul portions of the _Ark_, and it seemed that the weight of the _Ark_'s hull was maxing out Optimus' pulling capabilities. Or at least it seemed that way to Bee, cause they were going so _slow_.

When they finally pulled up to the ever evolving complex, Bumblebee didn't even wait until he had fully stopped before transforming to his feet. As soon as they had gotten to within range of his senors and scanners, Bumblebee had realized that both Sam and Mikaela were here. He was a little surprised, but happy none the less, and could hardly wait to see them again. He knew that it had only been four days, hardly any time at all to someone several more times older than human history itself, but even in the short amount of time since knowing the two teens Bumblebee had seen changes in them. It only heightened his awareness of how little time he had with his closest friends.

It was funny how he had never developed such close ties with others of his kind, but Bumblebee easily attributed that to the actualities of his creation and the war that made getting close with anyone a hazardous proposition. Jazz had been his closest comrade, mostly because even though he was his superior officer, the mouthy and laid back mech had refused at act the part.

It must have been because Bumblebee was in such a rush that he never realized Ironhide would be standing right in front of him when he entered the complex. That is until he found himself looking down the barrel of a cocked and loaded cannon. Bumblebee's processor struggled to come up with a possible scenario that would led Ironhide to view him as a threat suitable for deactivation. But nothing came up and no defence came to mind before the weapons officer fired.

Bumblebee didn't even have time to off-line his optics before the explosion, therefore, indelibly imprinted into his memory was the sight of an enormous puff of smoke, the expulsion of tiny bits of paper, highly reflective squares of plastic and impossibly long strips of brightly colored paper. At the exact moment of the explosion was a comically anti-climactic 'pop' and the coursed cheer of seven human voices.

"Happy Birthday!"

How could he have forgotten! As diligent as he had been in cataloguing every move Sam and Mikaela made, analyzing every word they said, looking for the inconsistencies in their stories, he had never seen this coming. How could they have pulled this off without him knowing? They simply couldn't have found the time...

"You!" Bumblebee accused his leader in surprised realization. Optimus just stood there, arms crossed in a relaxed stance grinning all the while.

"The point of a surprise party," Mikaela started informing him from somewhere at his feet. He finally looked away from Optimus' bemused dark blue optics to find her under Sam's arm. "Is for everyone to know except the guest of honor."

"And it works even better when we know that you knew what we were up to!" Sam told him brightly, before dropping a whisper to his girlfriend's ear, "We did know, right?" Mikaela rolled her eyes but nodded, making Sam smile all the more for getting the confusing sentence correct. Bumblebee suspected that he had practiced it a few times, most likely in his bedroom mirror.

He stood there too stunned to move even when Glen Whitmann yelled quite loudly for an organic to 'Get this party started!'. The cavernous space was instantly filled with music and moving colored lights that Bumblebee assumed were under the hacker's control where he stood behind large black boxes with wires and connections running everywhere.

"They made me do it," Ironhide grumbled, looking forlornly at his obviously altered cannon.

"Oh would you stop complaining. It was the only thing the children asked of you," Ratchet scolded as he began to assist Optimus in removing the streamers from Bumblebee's head and shoulders, and just about everywhere else the strips had found an angle to hang on to. Bumblebee was sure it was going to take months for him to get all the confetti and glitter out.

"I will have you back up and destroying everything in sight in no time," Ratchet continued.

"Yeah, and what am I going to do if we're attacked?" Ironhide demanded as he shook his arm to get rid of the left over glitter.

"Well, if the shock does not put them off-line," Optimus told his weapons officer solemnly, "the laughter should."

Ironhide stomped away to a table and stools that Bumblebee had just realized had been set up across the room. On the table was a box and a pile of small glowing cubes.

"Is that what I think it is?" Bumblebee had to ask, because he simply could not trust his optics.

"Yes, Energon Cubes," Optimus confirmed. "Ratchet worked very hard to get the cube generator working in time."

Ratchet made a gruff noise that was something between a 'humph' and a growl. "Mikaela must have been created for interrogation function."

Suddenly the music was muted, much to Glen's displeasure if his shout was anything to go by. The gathered humans; Sam, Mikaela, Captain Lennox, his wife Sarah, their daughter Megan in her father's arms, Sargent Epps, Maggie and Glen looked up at him expectantly and the only thing Bumblebee thought to do was sit on the floor to get closer to them.

"Alright everyone, for safety reasons, and because someone couldn't wait to dip into the cake..." Sam said, glaring in Glen's direction.

"What! My blood sugar was crashing!"

"Meaning that he hadn't had any Fruity Pebbles in about an hour," Maggie supplied. By the look of confusion on everyone's face accept Glen's, Bumblebee could see that he wasn't the only one not getting the reference.

"Cake vandalism aside," Sam said loudly to drown out Glen's protests, "We, that being Mikaela, decided that presents should be first so that everyone can move forward with eating, drinking, dancing and energizing. Who's up first?"

Captain Lennox handed his daughter to Sarah, straightened his dress uniform, removed something from his pocket and then took a place next to his Sargent, who was already standing to attention in a very serious way. The two of them approached him with measured steps, their heads held high and their bodies held ridged. Once they stood directly in front of them, Captain Lennox open the small box covered in some kind of fabric to reveal its contents.

"It is with great honor to present to you, Autobot Bumblebee, the Silver Star by order of the President. It is awarded to you for gallantry in action while serving the U.S. Armed Forces and distinguishing yourself by displaying extraordinary heroism in action against an enemy of the United States."

Mikaela must have realized the problem he had with actually taking such an important, but tiny, gift, because she came forward quickly to accept the metal in his stead. The two officers snapped into a salute that Bumblebee realized he had to return, by direction of Sarah Lennox behind her husband's back. He felt just a little silly sitting there on the floor, saluting the two very serious looking humans, but once relieved of their duty the two officers reverted to smiles and sincere words of congratulations.

Maggie was next. She gave him a small computer device, which Mikaela accepted for him, loaded with every legally downloadable song, sound bite or recording she could find. Bumblebee noticed that she took much pleasure in emphasizing the 'legal' part in Glen's direction. To which her sometimes coworker, just rolled his eyes, shook his head and handed Mikaela his gift.

"From me to you Big Yellow, to decorate your room, if you ever get one."

"It would have been done by now, if I had not been commanded to work on non-essential items first," Ratchet called in his defense. The humans laughed, and Bumblebee was sure that wasn't the first time they had heard that complaint.

While everyone was distracted with teasing Ratchet, Glen leaned in close to whisper, "And later on, I think we need to do some textin' up, because your security is anything but."

Alarmed, Bumblebee scanned the contents of the computer Glen had given and was shocked to see that it contained hundreds of precisely selected and carefully edited still pictures from his own security surveillance of Sam and Mikaela's homes. Some were serious, most were not, capturing candid moments between friends suitable for framing.

Mikaela quieted everyone down while she went to the table set up for the humans back against the wall and under Ratchet's workbench. She set down the Silver Star and the two computers and picked up a plain white envelope. When she got to Sam's side she grabbed hold of his shoulders and bodily moved him to stand directly in front of Bumblebee. Once there, she handed Sam the envelope and told him to open it for the guest of honor.

"But I thought we were getting him seat covers," Sam asked in confusion, opening the present as directed anyway.

"And exactly where would they go once he transformed?" Mikaela asked her boyfriend.

"Good point," Sam said, obviously not having thought of it before. "But what is this?" Sam asked as he pulled out a thick fold of paper and unfolded it.

"Well, male bonding is very important to a young man, and even though Bumblebee is only," she consulted her watch, "twenty minuets old, there's no time like the present. Besides, it's a right of passage."

"But this... these are..." Sam stuttered flipping through the papers rapidly. For the first time Bumblebee wished that Sam had been born with a window in his head so that he could see what he was looking at.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," Maggie said excitedly, "what is it?"

Seeing that Sam was still not able to articulate a full sentence, Mikaela spoke for him, "It's a paid in full road trip to the National Car Exposition in Miami."

"Florida!" Sam exclaim in case no one knew where Miami was.

Bumblebee was surprised, but confused. Mikaela already knew that he had been all over the United States in search of the Witwicky progenies, far more than a simple trip from California to Florida would be.

"Man, I would have killed for that at seventeen!" Sergeant Epps exclaimed enviously. "I might fight ya for it now." Sam tucked the papers to his chest protectively.

"Just imagine, no parents, no curfews, no responsibilities, just you and your car and the open road," Captain Lennox said, a dreamy far off look to his face.

Optimus must have sensed his confusion, and Bumblebee was grateful that he didn't have to ask the reason behind the present that obviously had taken quite a lot of effort on Mikaela's part to put together.

"From now until the day before the children have to return to school you are here by placed on leave," Optimus told him. "I do not expect to see you, hear from you or otherwise know what you are up to until your return. Is that understood?"

It took a moment for it to sink in. A leave of absence was something that had never crossed his processor. He had always been on duty from the moment he was activated. The concept was complete alien.

"We are going on a road trip!" Sam screamed to the delight of the other party guests. The teen grabbed his girlfriend around the waist and spun her around in a circle, laughing and bouncing all the while.

At that point, Glen reactivated the music and the party was in full swing again, at least for the humans. Bumblebee stood to get out of the way when the humans began to dance around the floor.

"We have a present as well," Optimus informed him, as he led the still stunned and confused mini-bot to the Cybertronian sized table. Ironhide and Ratchet stood when he approached and Bumblebee was now the one looking up. They said not a word as Optimus handed him the box he had noticed earlier.

It was still small, only a quarter the size of his hand, but easily large enough for him to manipulate open. Inside was a single delicate circuit card. The only time he had seen one was after it had been extracted from a fallen comrade.

"It's been too long a time coming," Ironhide said with one of his rare smiles.

"But this is..." Bumblebee couldn't bring himself to name it aloud for fear it would evaporate in his hand. A Final Closure down load circuit, only Full-Term activated Cybertronians had them.

"I will install it before you leave on your trip, unless you need to make some additions before I do," Ratchet said kindly, referring to the designations listed on the card's surface. The place for Creator was filled, but the areas for Bonded and Second, were blank.

Bumblebee felt his systems fluttering on the brink of complete shut down, his spark was burning so intensely he thought it might burst from his chest.

"Come take a walk with me," Optimus said warmly, giving a slight tug to get Bumblebee moving towards the door. "You look like you need to decompress."

"Bee?"

Bumblebee heard Mikaela's voice as if it were far away, but the concern in her eyes was very close. He said he was fine, but the lowering of her eyebrows told him that she didn't believe him. She looked over his shoulder, to Optimus Bumblebee quested, and whatever she had seen there must have reassured her.

"Just remember we need you to cut the cake," she told him with a comforting smile as she returned to her task.

The two Autobots walk outside to the cooling desert air. Night had fallen rapidly revealing a moonless sky, but to his optics starlight was more than enough to see clearly. The two of them walked far enough that the noise of the party no longer competed with sounds of the desert. The expanse was devoid of structure or even real landscape save the mountains, but it felt more alive than Bumble had ever felt Cybertron to be.

"When you were built our need for a sentry was dire," Optimus began, his optics looking out over the same sand. "By that time in the war, most of the sentinels had been destroyed and we had been separated from the main core of the forces."

Bumblebee had heard this story before, or at least part of it from Ironhide. While in recovery from nearly fatal wounds, the large weapons officer had told him of a period of time where it had been only he, Optimus and Ratchet. How they had been in hiding, surrounded by Decepticons, waiting for their chance to escape. The story had ended with, 'Then we had you. Those creeps never knew what hit 'em'. Later, when Bumblebee had a chance to get to know Ironhide without neural blocks in place, he attributed Ironhide's chattiness to having his offensive and defensive diagnostics off-lined to keep him calm while he healed.

"My original design and function had been that of a Creator before I was reconfigured," Bumblebee was shocked at Optimus' revelation. He knew that almost everyone had been reconfigured after the war had started, with Ironhide being a double exception, a soldier that hadn't joined the Decepticon cause and therefor didn't need to be reconfigured. But Optimus didn't give him time to process that information before he revealed more.

"For some reason the Matrix saw fit to leave me stranded with the one mech old enough to remember that. Ratchet had refused my order to fashion a pre-loaded sentinel, sighting his previous so called failure, so the task was left to me."

Bumblebee knew little of Ratchet's foray in being a Creator, except that it was something that you did not discuss with the medic. But again, Optimus gave him no time to contemplate, only listen.

"My existence as a creator was very short lived," Optimus continued, and Bumblebee was sure his leader sounded embarrassed. "Though I had created and brought online a few dozen Pre-loads, I never felt I was ready to create a Full-term, so I never did, but I should have known from the instant you were brought online that you were much more than I had intended you to be."

Optimus paused long enough to turn and face Bumblebee, his deep blue optics locked on the Final Closure down load circuit still in the smaller mech's hand.

"Ratchet put my designation down as your Creator, but in truth Bumblebee, you are a true child of the Matrix and the Cube."

If this little talk was meant to calm his nerves, Bumblebee thought Optimus was failing miserably. The very first mechs brought online were believe to be children of the Matrix, the driving destiny of all living things, and the Allspark, the source of life itself. The only thing equivalent in human terms were angels.

"We should have known when we were reunited with Jazz and he mistook you for a wayward soldier we had picked up in his absence, but we were blinded by what we thought we knew."

Bumblebee had not realized himself the significance of Jazz's mistake until he had met his first Pre-load other than himself, Roller. The little bot excelled at its job but that was because its pre-loaded programming was all it knew, its only purpose and reason for existence. Over time, Bumblebee met more Pre-loads and came to realize that they were not much more than highly functioning, trained pets. But the realization of what he was meant to be, was tempered by the fact that no Cybertonian he had ever met, with the exception of Wheeljack, had ever guessed what he was. And that was only because the inventor had noticed that he did not have a Final Closure down load circuit when he had to repair him once.

"I know that I can never give back the experience of being Full-term that I stole from you," Optimus continued and Bumblebee wanted to deny that he was upset by not growing and learning as other Cybertronians had, but found that he couldn't. "But maybe in a small way this little right of passage of Sam's can also be your own."

Optimus placed both of his massive hands on Bumblebee's shoulders and the Autobot scout thought he could actually see the strength of Optimus' spark shine in his optics.

"Go, have a good time, forget about the war, the Decepticons, and old rusting mechs that have nothing better to do than reminisce about the past. Live in the present, dream about the future and remember all that is precious to you."

Bumblebee watched Optimus walk back to the in-process compound, leaving him there to deal with more than he had ever hoped he'd have. In his hand was the one thing that physically separated him from his comrades.

Bumblebee struggled to recall the very first moments of his existence, those precious seconds just after he had been brought online. He remembered Optimus looking down at him, asking him if he was functioning, and he had responded in the affirmative after his internal diagnostics came back clear. Then Optimus had asked if he was ready to get to work, and that was where the difference truly came in.

Not in the card in his hand or the fact that he would never have to learn on his own all the simple things like walking, talking, and transforming, but in the fact that he had been given a choice. Pre-loads had no choice. They were built with a single purpose and they performed it without question. But he was given a choice, and he clearly remembered weighting his options and examining the facts and in the end deciding that he would indeed like to get to work.

Bumblebee then realized that everything thing inside of him, in some way, was a reflection of Optimus his Creator, but nothing more than that. He had been given, pre-loaded, with everything Optimus thought was essential to his function, but he had never been told what to think, what to do or how to apply it, he had come up with that all on his own, as any Full-term would have to.

Now the circuit in Bumblebee's hand meant little more to him than Sam's driver's license meant to his human. Important and precious as any other milestone in life would be, but it didn't make him any more Cybertronian than he already was.

Every step back to home lightened an unknown burden from his shoulders, and Bumblebee was ready for whatever might happen next. Bumblebee reentered the party and saw the humans gathered around Ironhide's feet. He didn't need centuries upon centuries to realize who he was or wanted to be.

"Who wants to play 'Pin the Tailgate to the Pickup Truck'?" Sam asked and was immediately covered in glitter, confetti and streamers.

Bumblebee was a Guardian, and a slagging good scout when he wanted to be, and by the look of things it was going to be a long 80 years if Sam didn't get on the ball soon and figure out what he was meant to be other than a pain in the weapons officer's aft.

"I think I might keep this just a little bit longer," Ironhide said with a devious grin before he took aim.

Author's notes:

It would seem that I have inadvertently confused some of my audience. (I have an audience ::grin::) This story was originally my way of giving screen time to the personal interactions of the characters and to give my opinion on little things I've noticed about Transformers over the years. I didn't start with a plot in mind, but apparently the story has picked one up along the way.

The Pre-loaded and Full-term is my way of explaining Transformers like; Roller (the little buggy bot of Optimus' from G1), Optimus' trailer that could function on its own but only at Optimus' order, some of the cassettes (Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw) and the actual Guardians that were on Cybertron in G1. I began to wonder, in a world where everything that was living had to first be intentionally built, why have living creatures that didn't seem to have the same independent thinking as the rest of the Cybertonians? So, I came up with the conclusion that it was intentional. So in my mind (a very colorful and scary place without a map) Pre-loaded and Full-terms were born. I came up with this idea waaaaaay back in G1 and just applied it to the movie. And since the Transformers universe changes with every generation/season I just decided to put my own spin on it.

Full-terms are created and have very minimal programming already present at activation (the equivalent of instincts in humans), otherwise they learn for themselves over time, they 'grow-up'.

Pre-loads are Transformers built with a single purpose, whether it is guarding something, or obeying their master. They hit the ground running with everything they need to complete their designed task. There faster to construct and no time is lost in raising them up.

I felt that the issue of Pre-loads and Full-terms needed to be brought up before the surprise plot was sprung on everyone out of the blue. It was meant to be a heads up before it's brought up again later in the story.

I came up with Bumblebee being initially created as a Pre-load because of his apparent youth, despite his obvious skill, his seemingly instantaneous desire to become Sam's Guardian, and his lack of a mouth. Yep, you read right, no mouth. Everyone else got one, why not him? At first I blew it off thinking that the animators were trying to make a visual point that Bumblebee (at least in the beginning of the movie) could not speak. Then I bought the trade paperback prequel, and even there, before his lost of voice, he was drawn without a mouth. Now if Bumblebee was created with the intention of him being a Pre-load, why build him a mouth with which to speak, if Pre-loads are basically mute? (If you look at the examples I listed earlier none of them speak out loud) I know it's a stretch but I thought it would make for a neat back-story.

When the Optimus in my story compares Bumblebee to the first Transformers (the angels as Bumblebee names them), he's being more philosophical than literal. Basically Optimus feels that the Matrix must have been guiding his actions when he was constructing Bumblebee, because obviously the little bot became more than he had intended him to be. Optimus doesn't feel that he deserves the credit for how well Bumblebee turned out mainly because he feels guilty. But I think maybe, just maybe it had more to do with Optimus' unconscious desire to return to the way things were, to a time before the war, that drove him to create Bumblebee the way he did. Again, just my spin on the idea, not cannon fact.

From this point forward the story is going to become more and more a function of my imagination than cannon fact. Basically I'll be using the 2007 Movie as the universe I'm creating in while at the same time bringing back ideas and characters from G1. Since I'll be using my memories from G1 (twenty years old memories mind you) I won't get everything right, but like I said, this is a new mutated conversion of the 2007 Movie and G1.

I also want to take this time to thank the reviewers. You have been very helpful and encouraging and made this little bit of entertainment even more fun to make. Let's face it, I'm a review junkie. I'm tickled pink that the humor that I worked at getting in there has come through. It always seemed to be a very intimate part of any of the Transformers' universes. The friendships between the characters were also very strong in my mind from every season. And the spelling (Jason M. Lee ::grin::) is completely my fault. I'd love to blame it on my Beta, but I don't have one so I'll take the hit. I'm going back and editing the chapters for corrections. I'm not entirely sure where this is all going, but I'm glad you guys have enjoyed the ride so far.

And you are correct KaindeAmedha419, Megatron always finds a way back. And Jazz…. Honestly, I'm terrified to write him. He was one of my all time favorites and I'm not sure I could do him justice even if I found a way to bring him back believably. But where there is hope there is life, or so I've been told.

Well, that's all folks, going to go back to writing the next part. Let's see, we've heard from Optimus, Ironhide, Sam, Ratchet, and Bumblebee. I wonder who could be next….


	6. The Wrong Place

Human Interactions

The Wrong Place

By Paperkat

08/03/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please forgive me

Author's notes have been moved to the end of part V 'Angels in the Making'

"Bumblebee… Sam… Wait, hold on a minute," Mikaela yelled into the cell phone as if talking louder and plugging her free ear with her finger were going to give her a better signal.

"Mikaela, you have not attached your sensors," Ratchet called out from somewhere behind the stack of whatever it was he was attempting to organize.

Mikaela held her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and yelled sarcastically back, "Just a little louder, Ratchet. I don't think they heard you in _Florida_!"

She could hear Ratchet rumbling his discontent of having the tests interrupted, but it wasn't her fault that Sam and Bee had chosen now to call. Besides, it had been almost a week since they left for their trip and all that they had exchanged so far were emails and text messages. Once standing in the entranceway to the Autobot's slowly evolving complex, Mikaela's phone was able to establish a clear signal.

"I'm warning you Bee. Give it back or it's chemical warfare, I promise you."

"I'm not scared of your emissions human, do your worse."

"For the record," Mikaela cut in, trying not to smile so much that they could hear it, "I don't ever want to know what that was about."

"Mikaela!!" the two right of passage goers cried simultaneously over the line.

"Well, at least you remembered my name. So, what are the two of you up to?"

"You would not believe how many cool cars are here!" Mikaela suppressed the urge to say 'well, duh', it was a car exposition after all.

"They're alright," Bumblebee chimed in, not sounding nearly as impressed.

"Don't get all pouty. I saw you eyeing that Caddy with lifts. Bet you wished you could do that."

"I could do that if I had a malfunctioning hydraulics regulator. And before you even ask, no we're not breaking it on purpose."

"But Bee, it would be so cool!"

"Did you guys call me for a reason?" Mikaela broke in again. The two of them were adorable, and she loved them to death, but the desert was getting cold now that the sun had set. Her shoes and jacket were still inside, and goose bumps were already starting to form across her bare arms.

The line grew quiet and the air seemed to electrify with unspoken tension.

"Just wanted to see what you were up to and to see if maybe you missed us… me… or Bee, you know just wondering," Sam muttered quietly, his voice getting smaller and more hesitant as he talked.

Mikaela's heart constricted with sympathy for Sam. Even after four months of dating he was still so insecure about their relationship, and part of the blame was hers. She wasn't as open as she knew she could be. It was just a product of living on the run so long with her father that made her hold her cards to the chest. You just didn't get close to people, because anyone could betray you. Sam wasn't like that, he just didn't have it in him to think that way, but old habits died hard and Mikaela struggled everyday to find a balance between opening up to Sam and protecting herself.

"I always miss you when you're gone," Mikaela assured him immediately. "Believe me, it's just not the same without you guys around. All work and no fun."

"Has Ratchet been bothering you?" Bee asked, sounding a little concerned but mostly amused.

"It hasn't been too bad. Just getting everything ready for when his Special Helper comes back from vacation," Mikaela teased pointedly, bringing up the name Bumblebee had used to describe himself while assisting Ratchet with reconfiguring the _Ark_ into a permanent complex.

"You're so helpful," Bee muttered sarcastically.

"Don't worry I'll pitch in," Sam offered.

"No you won't," Mikaela cut in swiftly. "I have plans for you."

"Plans?" her boyfriend squeaked in surprise.

"Oh yes, plans," Mikaela reiterated, letting her voice drop an octave and slide over the phone line like a caress. It never failed to get her very specific results.

"Sam?" Bumblebee asked in mock concern. "Sam, you need to breathe, your face is turning blue."

"It is not," the teen male denied hotly.

"My malfunction. You are correct. It's turning red."

"Shut it, Bee."

During Sam's and Bumblebee's debate Mikaela's phone gave the first of three warning tones that the battery was low and going to shut down. She pulled it away from her ear to confirm visually that her time was very limited and then glared back into the cavernous entryway. This always happened when she came to visit and Ratchet had yet to look into why.

"Hey Sam, I got to go, my battery's almost dead."

"Oh, ok."

The same awkward silence that followed all of their phone conversations ensued. If they had have been saying goodbye in person they would have kissed until one of them needed to breathe and the other would have said goodbye, but that kind of intimacy was lost on the phone, especially with Sam's hands-free set-up plugged into Bumblebee. Mikaela heard another more insistent tone from her phone and made an impulsive decision.

"Well, you two have fun and come back in one piece, don't talk to any strange cars," Mikaela paused to gather her courage. Her final warning from her cell pushed her forward. "Love you Sam. See you when you get back."

There was no need for her to end the call as the power drained out exactly on queue. It was cheep of her to do that, knowing that Sam wouldn't have an opportunity to respond, but Mikaela wouldn't have been able to stand it if Sam hadn't been able to answer back in kind. This way if he didn't feel the same way at least the two of them could pretend that nothing was said or that the phone had died before she had said the words she had only spoken to her father before now.

Of course now Mikaela was plagued by the 'whats'. What had Sam thought of her confession? What did he feel? What was he thinking now? What was Bumblebee thinking now? But Mikaela knew the answer to that one. She knew that the smallest Autobot thought it was silly that verbal confessions of affection were necessary. Well, maybe not silly, but definitely inefficient.

To Bumblebee's way of thinking there was no such thing as a passing fancy or temporary infatuation or any of the short-term conditions that linked humans together. Apparently once affection was given for his kind it was permanent and binding, but Transformers didn't have to deal with things like hormones, so for Bumblebee it was probably true. She had certainly never questioned the depth of Bee's seemingly instant and sincere affection.

It seemed like the more she found that made their species similar the more she found that set them apart. So engrossed in her internal analysis of all things human and Cybertronian, Mikaela never saw the 20+ foot robot standing right in front of her when she returned to the main room.

"Do…"

Mikaela let out with a piercing scream, as Ratchet seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Don't jump out at me like that!" But the Autobot medic wasn't listening to her, in fact he seemed to have forgotten she was there at all, that is until he spoke.

"Do that again," Ratchet commanded, his scanners brushing over Mikaela with a soft powder blue light.

"Do what? Piss my pants or have a heart attack? Sorry, not happening," she informed the giant robot that seemed to thrive on making random requests lately.

Ratchet gave her a visual once over, probably checking to see if she had actually 'lubricated' on herself, before sighing. He had really gotten good at making it sound more human.

"Please attach your sensors, I am losing data. Your personal monitor is insufficient for detailed analysis."

"Ratchet is this still necessary?" Mikaela asked even as she complied. The nest of wires and electrodes were exactly where she had left them yesterday, in a sticky pile under Ratchet's workbench on the folding table she had bought for Bumblebee's birthday cake last week.

"You've already determined that Sam and I and the entire human race for that matter were safe," she reminded him as she started to untangle the sensors. "What more can there possibly be?"

Instead of answering immediately, something that Mikaela had gotten used to as just the way Ratchet operated, the medic went to the almost fully functional computer from the _Ark_. Mikaela had to smile at the name. It never ceased to amaze her how things translated from Cybertronian to English. Of course she had been informed that Optimus and Teletran were designations that had to be extrapolated from the human language. Prime apparently was a rank of some sort, or at least that's the conclusion Mikaela had come to while spending her designated time with the Autobot leader.

And a very pleasant time it had been. At first they had just sat in each other's company. She would read and he would do whatever a 30-foot robot did in complete silence. At some point she had started to read aloud, a habit she had developed when trying to memorize a book for a report. Then when she hadn't been able to continue, Optimus picked up where she had stopped. It had been quiet, peaceful and the exact opposite of her time with Ironhide.

Her time with Ironhide had been a bit more like boot camp. Intense, how to completely or otherwise screw with you enemy, boot camp. It was pretty much the same as her and Bumblebee discussing Cybertronian physiology, except Ironhide taught her how to rip them apart, not how to patch them back together. It was informative and lively to say the least, but she hoped she would never have to use it.

Right now was her time with Ratchet, filled with tests, samples and endless questions.

At the moment, Ratchet was using the massive keypad situated just under Teletran's wall sized screen. She had been told that once the Autobot's computer was fully functional, it would be verbally interfaced, but for now the keypad had to be used. Mikaela remembered how small Bumblebee had looked next to it. The keypad hit him at just under his shoulders and Ratchet mid-chest, Optimus seemed to be the only one that could use the keypad comfortably.

"This configuration," Ratchet finally said, as he pressed a few more key stokes to display an image, "should enable me to isolate the anomalous reading."

Mikaela just stood there and stared, the spaghetti of wires left hanging forgotten in her hands. There in 3 story, larger than life, perfect detail was an exact, down to the mole on her hip, image of her naked body. Ratchet had been apparently aware enough of human taboo and sensibilities to not accurately display the important bits, but it was still a little unnerving to know that even though she had never taken he clothes off in front of the medic he had somewhere in his brain, and apparently in Teletran One, an image of her body.

"You do have a password for that thing, right?" Mikaela asked, trying not to sound as freaked out as she felt. That would only frustrate Ratchet to have her 'illogical' human hang-ups disrupting his tests.

"No one would access my personal files," Ratchet defended mildly, as if mentioning it would make it happen.

"You do have a password for that thing, right?" Mikaela said again, making it clear that the question was rhetorical and not for debate, again Ratchet gave a human sigh.

"I will encrypt all files pertaining to your physical form and body specifics," the medic relented, turning back to the console to type in his commands.

"Thank you," Mikaela told him gratefully as she went back to untangling the wires and attaching them to her body in the way displayed on the screen. The wires were actually little antennae designed to gather data all along their length and were faintly sticky to make them stay in place.

Ratchet knew more about her insides, outside and just about everything else she had than anyone had a right to, but in the name of science and peaceful relations between them, Mikaela endured it silently. After all he had come through with his side of the bargain, providing food and drink, which she came to find out, was pretty much the same thing for the Autobots, and he had convinced Ironhide to go along with the Party Cannon.

"Ok, I'm ready," Mikaela informed the medic.

Ratchet was still imputing data into the giant computer.

_Wait for it_, Mikaela told herself, knowing what would happen next.

Ratchet turned around and came towards the workbench, a device she had never seen before in his hand. The medic offered his hand to Mikaela and she quickly climbed into his palm.

_Wait for it._

With deliberate care, Ratchet placed her on the table and came to stand in front of her position. He scanned her with this new piece of equipment.

_Wait for it._

"Do what you did in the hallway again," Ratchet requested nonchalantly.

_Whoop, there it is!_

Mikaela could have laughed, cried and swore all at the same time.

"I wasn't _doing_ anything Ratchet," Mikaela insisted for the millionth time. When was he going to realize that whatever the anomalous reading was, it was just that, anomalous. She wasn't doing anything to make it happen, it just happened.

"What were you thinking of at the time?" Ratchet asked.

Mikaela blinked in surprise. _This is new_.

"I was…" Mikaela tried to remember her exact thoughts. "Well, when you scared the crap out of me I was thinking how nice it would be to put a bell on you so that you couldn't to that again."

Ratchet just smiled, probably amused at being considered the least bit stealthy.

"No before you were actually frightened," Ratchet clarified.

Mikaela took a moment then answered. "I was comparing Autobots to Humans."

"Alright then I want you to lay down," Ratchet said as he scooted the lounge chair Sam had liberated from the side of the road towards her. It looked like doll furniture next to his hand. "Think about the exact same thing as when you were in the hall."

"Ok, but I better not get billed for this."

Mikaela did as she was instructed. She remembered thinking about Sparks and Souls and how similar and different they were. Both a measure of life, yet one was physical and the other metaphysical. She tried to imagine what it could be like to hold something so fragile and weighty. Was a Spark scooped like water from a lake or harvested from the Allspark like fruit. Could her soul be plucked from her body if she could gather and twist it into…

"BING," said the device in Ratchet's hand.

"I need a more sensitive detector," he mumbled to himself as he left the room. "There should be something in storage, if I can link the…"

The rest of his externally spoken internal monologue was lost as Ratchet rounded the corner.

"Never mind me," Mikaela called out sarcastically. "I'll find something else to do for awhile."

Having had stuff like this happen before, Mikaela had tucked away a book to read when Ratchet got all Rainman on her. With boredom safety chased away, Mikaela settled in for a long wait. The last time Ratchet went to the storage room, he'd had been gone for an hour.

A resounding crash in the hallway instantly pulled Mikaela's attention from her novel. She waited for a Cybertronian curse to accompany the noise, figuring Ratchet had dropped something, but none came. She only had enough time to replace her bookmark when she heard weapon's fire, or at least she thought it was weapon's fire. It had a similar 'wawhoop' sound to Ratchet's wielding laser but on a much, much, much bigger scale. And to top it off, it didn't sound like anything she had heard the Autobots use thus far.

Mikaela's first instinct had been to call out to Ratchet to see if he was all right, but the thought died as quickly as it formed when she heard Ratchet begin to yell. It had the deadened hollow sound of someone on the other side of a heavy door and her suspicions were confirmed when the banging started. Someone had trapped Ratchet in the storage room.

Not even slowing to think about it, Mikaela ran to the fireman's pole attached to Ratchet's workbench. It had been Bumblebee's idea, as a way for her and Sam to quickly get down from the table in case none of the Autobots where around and there was an emergency, and Mikaela had a feeling that this qualified.

She grabbed the metal and gritted her teeth, Sam was much better at this than she was, and he preferred it to being lifted down. Mikaela's skin just seemed to stick to the highly polished metal like a tongue on a frozen flagpole. It never failed to leave hickie like marks on the exposed portions of her arms and legs, but the discomfort was preferable to being out in the open.

On the way down to the floor, Ratchet had stopped banging and had switched from English to Cybertronian. By the time her feet touched the ground Mikaela could hear the muffled high pitched, hollow sound of Ratchet's saw blade against metal. The safety bunker Ironhide had constructed in the corner of the room was a good hundred yards away. Mikaela's gym teacher would have been amazed to see her brake the girls' track record considering she hadn't done much more than dress-out all last year, but Mrs. Hammond never used the motivation of thundering enemy footsteps either.

From her hiding place Mikaela watched the intruder enter the room. It was tall, maybe as tall as Optimus, but not nearly as bulky. The slim form was more minimalist than sleek and had the same silver-gray brushed metal look as she remembered Megatron having. There was enough of a resemblance there to shock her into thinking that maybe Megatron had returned from the dead, but she quickly realized that the joint configurations were all wrong. Unless Megatron had gone on a massive diet and had changed his alternate form completely this couldn't be the same robot. Of course they had dumped his body in the ocean to crush it…

The intruder did a visual sweep of the room; protective blast shielding similar to Bumblebee's covered its eyes. It did not pause in her direction, which meant that either it wasn't scanning anything beyond the human visible wavelengths or Ironhide's senor shielding armor used to make the safety bunker was doing its job. Now the intruder's focus was on Teletran One.

All Mikaela could do was helplessly watch as the unknown robot accessed Teletran's files. She couldn't even use her phone to call Sam to relay a message to Optimus through Bumblebee because it was dead.

In a blur, what seemed to be hundreds of thousands of images flashed on the screen. _How did it get in?_ Mikaela wondered. The external security had been online from the moment the first of the _Ark_'s canons had been off loaded almost two months ago. They should have blown the unauthorized intruder to kingdom come long before it had a chance to enter the complex. But there it stood acting like it owned the place.

Ratchet didn't sound like he was getting any closer to freeing himself and Mikaela was at a loss for what to do. All of the tools she could have used to sever any exposed or near surface energon lines were up on the workbench and now out of her reach. Ironhide had taken the few modified human weapons capable of disabling a Cybertronian with him when he had been asked to participate in training Special Ops forces commissioned to deal with the Decepticon threat. There simply wasn't anything she could do.

_But maybe there's something Teletran could do to help itself_, Mikaela thought. Mounted high in the corners of the room where Null Canons designed to stop the enemy cold without completely obliterating the room. The only problem was the internal security had been disabled.

Teletran had gone into a fit every time Ratchet reorganized the rooms of the complex. The internal security had to be disabled so that the medic could work in peace without having to make Teletran stand down with every imagined security breach. But there was an emergency manual override. Actually there were two emergency overrides; one for the Autobots located about 15 feet up from her current position and another newer, human sized addition that Optimus had instructed Ratchet to install, which happened to be against the wall, right in front of were the intruder was standing.

Mikaela wanted to scream but didn't want to take the chance that she could be heard. She could try and make a brake for the emergency override, but with the way the intruder kept looking back over its shoulder she was bound to her caught.

Suddenly the screen stopped flipping. Mikaela determined that the intruder must not have done it itself, not only because it jumped back when a new image was displayed but because of who it was.

"And who the hell are you?!" Glen Whitmann demanded from what looked like his bedroom, if the movie posters in the background were any indication.

The intruder let out what sounded to be a Cybertronian curse as it started to work at the keypad more aggressively.

"Oh, no, I don't think so Tin Man," Glen countered, his large fingers moving lightening fast on his own keyboard.

"Maggie!" Glen screamed over his shoulder in a wonderful Whitney Houston imitation. "Oh, you think you're cute, huh..." he growled at the screen before throwing his head back a second time.

"Maggie!" the hacker yelled again, his eyes shifting frantically from seemingly the eyes of his opponent to another screen to his right.

"Glen, what on Earth are you..." Maggie started to ask from somewhere off camera, but Glen cut her off.

"Get the Big Guy!" he commanded pounding furiously on his keyboard, sweat started to appear on his brow.

"The President? Glen I told you, not even the President can get HBO to re-write the Soprano's ending," Maggie tried to reason with him, her voice getting louder until her face joined Glen's on Teletran's screen.

"No the other... Aw, hell nah..." Glen muttered, his face going from hyperactive Internet gamer intense to unnervingly focused, his eyes would not stray from his secondary monitor.

"My, God Glen, that's a...," the highly intelligent woman gasped, obviously assessing the situation quickly and accurately.

"Yes..." Glen agreed, his determination and focus not swaying.

"He's in..."

"I know..." the hacker confirmed her unfinished statement.

"I need to contact Optimus," Maggie blurted out quickly before disappearing from view.

"Ya, think!" Glen yelled, losing his focus for the first time to glare in the direction Maggie had gone.

Seizing the unexpected opportunity, Mikaela scurried across the floor. Her bare feet made no sound on the unforgiving metal but her racing heart sounded like a bass drum in her head. She felt like a rat in a maze as she maneuvered her way around the randomly placed Autobot storage boxes that Ratchet had yet to put away. If Glen could keep the intruder occupied long enough, she may have a chance to get to the manual controls for the internal defense system. That is of course _if_ Ratchet had finished connecting the human sized emergency lever at the base of Teletran One.

_Who's idea was it to put it there anyway_, Mikaela thought to herself. But there would be plenty of time later to bitch about that _after_ the immediate threat was taken care of. Glen continued to battle the intruder for what must have been control of Teletran One. The hacker was apparently keeping pace with the steel grey robot if the ever-increasing movement of the Tin Man's fingers was an indication. Mikaela slipped into the shadow of the overhanging keypad, mindful of the shifting feet of the intruder. Suddenly Glen's ranting stopped and Mikaela was left to assume that the Tin Man had gained control and had locked the human hacker out.

_It's now or never_, Mikaela told herself as she opened the emergency panel and threw the lever. For an instant, nothing seemed to happen, then a voice she had never heard before filled the room.

"Initiating intruder detection sequence," it informed the room. There was another curse in Cybertronian from the Tin Man, this one she did recognize from her time spent with Ironhide. Smiling and very pleased with herself, Mikaela made a dash for the safety of Ironhide's bunker. She didn't get ten yards before she was stepped on.

Mikaela supposed that the only reason she wasn't killed instantly was because Tin Man must have felt her under his foot before stepping completely down. As it was, her neck must have been broken because she felt no pain as she lay there and watched her blood pool out from her head and mix with the remnants of glitter that had stubbornly refused to be swept up. The only thing she could feel now was fear, the fear that she would die before she found out if Sam knew that she had loved him with all of her heart. But that fear melted away with her consciousness knowing that Bumblebee would always be there to take care of Sam.


	7. Feeling Small

Human Interactions

Feeling Small

By Paperkat

08/09/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

By the way, there really was a creature called a glitchmouse in G1. Enjoy!

Optimus was indulging in an activity he had not done in longer than he cared to remember; stargazing. Though they were not the same stars as his youth they held the same appeal. He really did not have to go this far from the complex to appreciate the night sky. In fact, Ratchet only required a mile separation to conduct his tests with Mikaela, but Optimus liked being able to see the mountains, the forest and the desert at the same time and this was the only place he could do that.

He enjoyed looking up at the stars knowing that at least they were older than he was. He relished the idea that there were more grains of sand than he could ever count. The thought that he could disappear into the trees thrilled him. And the unmovable mountains humbled him.

_Yes_, Optimus thought as he laid back to stare into space, _sometimes it was good to feel so small_. Compared to the wonders around him he was insignificant and right now that suited him just fine. It was pleasant to pretend, even for a moment, he was not the last remaining Prime. That somewhere out there, more of his kind were making their way to Earth.

"Optimus Prime!"

The call startled him. The frequency it used was reserved for US Military use, but the voice was definitely not the Defense Secretary or Captain Lennox, however it was familiar.

"Maggie Madsen? Why are you contacting me instead of Defense Secretary Keller?" Optimus was aware that the young female worked directly for the Defense Secretary, but he was certain that it was a breach of protocol for her to use this communications frequency.

"Look we don't have time for that right now. Glen was monitoring Teletran One and he..." Optimus was forced to interrupt.

"I thought he promised to not enter our system again without prior authorization?" In the beginning stages of reassembling and reconfiguring Teletran One the human infiltration expert had found his way into the _Ark_'s computer. At the time he claimed it was an accident and it was Optimus' understanding Glen had been disciplined for his actions. Apparently the punishment had not been harsh enough tokeep him for doing it again.

"That isn't important now. Right now..."

Maggie was cut off in mid sentence and Optimus could hear the evidence of a struggle on the other end of the connection.

"Give me that, Big Guy is that you?"

"Yes, Glen Whitmann," Optimus confirmed with a tired sigh. Glen Whitmann and the well-known Autobot inventor Wheeljack were in the same category, undoubtedly brilliant but dangerous if left unsupervised. Optimus shuttered to imagine what chaos the young man had unleashed.

"Man, you need to get your booty back to base and kick some serious Decepticon ass..."

The mere mention of Decepticon had Optimus to his feet and scanning the immediate area for any indication that an enemy was near. Finding none, Optimus opened a secondary communications link to contact Teletran One while still monitoring the humans bickering on the US military frequency.

"Glen he needs information not..."

"Oh, I'm informing him. I'm informing him to get the Mofo that turned my baby into a smoking pile of dog crap."

Optimus' worry turned to dread when he was unable to establish a link with the complex's computer or contact Ratchet. He was already transforming when Optimus used his strongest and most commanding vocalization to put a stop to the humans' argument.

"Maggie Madsen what has happened?" There was another brief struggle then the encryption expert answered with her lilting accent.

"Glen put a firewall on Teletran One to signal him if there was any strange activity. About ten minutes ago it alerted him that someone was attempting a massive download. When he went to investigate he found an unidentified NBE hacked into your system. Glen slowed him down, but he couldn't stop him."

"What of Ratchet and Mikaela?" Optimus asked, needing to know if he was coming into a hostage situation. He should have never gone so far from the complex even with the external defenses online.

"If they were there, we saw no indication of it Optimus," she told him anxiously. "Do you want me to inform the Defense Secretary of this situation?"

It surprised Optimus that Maggie had not already informed her superior before contacting him, but he supposed it was her civilian background that compelled her actions.

"Yes, the Defense Secretary needs to be informed to standby on alert if this is a breach, however I request that no action is taken until I can assess the situation."

"Understood, I will make sure that the Defense Secretary gets the message."

Optimus was pushing his alternate form to its limits as he sped across the desert. With his sensors and scanners open to their full capacity, Optimus continued to try and hale Ratchet while establishing a second link to Ironhide.

"What has happened Optimus?" Ironhide responded calmly over the coded emergency link.

"Uncertain," Optimus told his weapons officer honestly. "Glen Whitmann and Maggie Madsen have reported an unidentified Cybertronian accessing Teletran One. I am unable to raise either Teletran or Ratchet."

"Understood. I'm in route...,"Ironhide paused for a moment and finished gruffly, "with passengers. Lennox and Epps refuse to exit my cab."

Optimus did not comment on the humans' accompaniment. Both of them had proven that despite their frail in comparison bodies they were an asset, and if things were as bad as he feared they might need their help.

"Just make sure they understand to hold their fire until we can confirm that the intruder is a Decepticon. I don't want an Autobot coming under friendly fire if its actions have been misinterpreted."

"If you really believed that you wouldn't be moving like you had a Pit Hound on your aft."

And Ironhide was correct, Optimus did not believe that an Autobot would force its way into the complex and access Teletran One without so much as a by your leave from the resident Prime.

"What about Bumblebee?" Ironhide probed almost gently.

_Yes, what about Bumblebee_, Optimus thought to himself. The youngest Autobot was two days away even at full speed, there was not anything he could do for this situation.

"Our human friends could not attest to Ratchet or Mikaela's well being. I think it would be best to confront him with facts than to let him come up with his own scenario."

"If something's happen while he's been gone..." Ironhide said, voicing Optimus' own concern.

"I know, just get to the complex as fast as you can," Optimus ordered.

"Understood."

Optimus had not gotten too much farther when suddenly out of the dark came flashing and whirling lights heading parallel to his course. There could be only one emergency vehicle this far out in the desert, but Optimus' sensors read nothing in front of him. The Autobot leader made another attempt to contact Ratchet via the encoded emergency link, but still there was no response. Optimus did not need the headlights that were apart of his alternate form to see where he was going, but he flashed them on now and they had the desired effect. Ratchet turned sharply towards him.

"Optimus!" Ratchet called frantically from his voice capacitor. Optimus could hardly hear him over the noise of his own systems. Ratchet seemed fully functional, why could he not either send or receive transmitted communications?

The answer came in the form of an overloading transmission wave. Optimus could not hear his own cry when his entire array of sensors and scanners were painfully overloaded. The blast wave was numbing and debilitating for him, but compared to what Ratchet must have taken it was a mere slap to the face. Over half of Ratchet's processor was dedicated to his scanners' analysis, right now Optimus could only imagine the pain the medic was in.

Optimus tried to clear his head by rebooting only the most essential of his sensors. His optics were just coming back online when a figure stepped between him and Ratchet's twisting lights. It had the same height and bulk as Ironhide with his cannons in full deployment, but if Optimus was right about the identity of their attacker that would quickly change.

There was only one Decepticon with the power to block or reroute signals as efficiently and seamlessly as the Autobot's emergency channel had been. The poorly constructed, but familiar voice regulator only confirmed it.

"Rumble, Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw; disengage. Operation: Obtain secondary target."

The Autobot leader transformed to his feet and watched as Soundwave's limbs lost half of their mass. The two from his arms transformed themselves into Soundwave's two aerial Pre-loads Laserbeak and Buzzsaw. They took bird like forms and screeched their identical battles cries as they angled themselves upward only to reverse and come at Optimus in steep dives. They both fired at the Autobot leader, one going high the other low. Optimus' face guard automatically engaged when he readied himself for the attack.

Laserbeak's black and orange form attacked low across Optimus' knees, aiming at the joints without mercy. Buzzsaw, in brazen defiance of the massive size difference between himself and his opponent, went straight for the Autobot's optics. Having fought the pair before, Optimus anticipated both moves, but was only able to defend against one of them.

He gritted against the pain as Laserbeak's attack hit its mark, but was able to pluck the gold and black Buzzsaw from the sky before he got anywhere near his face. The metal bird of prey screamed in rage as Optimus twisted his upper half almost 180 degrees to target Laserbeak. Not stopping the motion, Optimus used Buzzsaw's own momentum to heave the Decepticon overhand and right into the aft of the other aerial Pre-load. In a tangle of wings, necks and claws the two structurally identical birds struck the sand.

With his back essentially to Soundwave, Optimus did not see Ravage's attack, but he was quite sure that the fangs now imbedding themselves into the hydraulics of his neck belonged to the four legged Decepticon. Ravage had positioned himself well and Optimus' arms were too bulky to reach around to the back of his neck and dislodge his new opponent. Optimus knew that if Ravage managed to sink his fangs completely into the hydraulics his ability to move his head and shoulders would be greatly compromised. Having no other real recourse, Optimus threw his head back, but instead of head butting Ravage; Optimus felt something get crunched between the base of his head plate and the solid wall of his shoulder guard. There was a cry of pain just before Ravage fell away, and when Optimus twisted his torso back around he saw why. Ravage had reconfigured himself in a strangely long muzzled cat like form, and it had been that muzzle that Optimus had crushed. The injured Decepticon Pre-load was pawing at his damaged nose, energon dripping thickly from the tip.

With the immediate threats taken care of, Optimus turned his attention to finding Soundwave. The now slimmer Decepticon communications officer was ignoring the fight completely, trusting that his semi-symbiotic partners would carry out his orders without supervision. Optimus moved to intercept Soundwave before he reached the injured Ratchet. Before he could his attention was grabbed by his remaining advisory, one that he should not have taken so lightly. Like his brother Frenzy, this last bot was Full-term and perfectly capable of coming up with an offense that was more than point and shoot.

"And where do you think you're goin'?" Rumble asked with his trademark cocky grin.

Optimus turned to his right to find the six-foot micro bot grinning at him. Rumble had his powerful Force Wave Generators buried in the sand. The Autobot leader soon found out what the purple Decepticon was up to when Rumble fired. A mere second later, the sand around Optimus' feet seemed to turn liquid. The demolitions expert had vibrated the sand particles apart allowing the Autobot's massive weight to sink below the surface of the sand up past his knees effectively immobilizing him.

"Not so big and bad now are ya Prime?" Rumble taunted, as he shifted his generators back into functional arms, but Optimus knew better than to engage the micro bot in verbal repartee. Soundwave's small army's intention was distraction while their master accomplished his goal, and the goal had something to do with Ratchet.

Optimus could see that his medic had recovered enough to transform, but had not gotten to his feet when Soundwave bludgeoned the back of his head with a fist. Ratchet went face first into the sand and Soundwave knelt beside the fallen body.

"No!" Optimus yelled when he saw Soundwave roll Ratchet to his back and then pry open the medic's protective chest plating.

The Autobot leader took aim at the Decepticon communications officer, Optimus' single cannon forming almost before he thought about it. But his shot went wide right and up when Optimus was hit with a three fold attack. Laserbeak had resumed his attack on Optimus' joints by targeting the elbow, his near twin Buzzsaw, used his medical grade razor beak to slice into the Autobot leader's shoulder holding the cannon on target. All of this combined with Rumble firing his energy pistol at the cannon itself from below cost Optimus his shot. None of the micro bots had the power to stop Optimus on their own, but there was definitely something to be said for overwhelming numbers.

"What did you do with her, you Pit spawned slag pile?" Ratchet demanded, his hands weakly clutching at Soundwave's arm which was now connected to the medic's internal inputs. Ratchet attempted to bring his medical saw to bear on his attacker, but the spinning blade had no bite as all of the teeth had been worn smooth.

Optimus was struggling to free his legs from the sand while defending himself from the onslaught of micro bots. His efforts doubled when Ratchet let loose a keening wail in

Cybertronian. Optimus reasoned that Soundwave must have accessed and then raped information from the medic's processor, a singularly impressive skill that had kept the Decepticons' communications officer high in their ranks. Soundwave's minions stuttered to a stop when their master needed all of their combined resources to quickly download his ill-gotten prize.

"Ah," Rumble cooed a moment later in false sympathy when his facilities became his own once again, "did you loose a squishy? Maybe you should invest in a leash."

Before Optimus could reply a rocket slammed into the Decepticon's side. Even though Rumble was by far a more heavily armored mech than Frenzy, the impact still threw Rumble head over heals and left a sizable hole in his abdomen. Following the projectile's path back to its source, Optimus found Sergeant Epps leaning out of Ironside's passenger side window an empty launcher still on his shoulder.

"He said I could!" the dark skinned human explained, pointing to Ironhide's hood.

Suddenly another missile came into Optimus' view heading towards the Autobot weapons officer. Ironhide veered sharply to his left, and only Captain Lennox's hold on his Sergeant's waistband kept Epps from flying out of the window. Ravage screamed his fury at missing his target and readied his second missile for another attempt. Optimus brought his cannon into position; he had a clear line of sight on the metallic cat's aft. One of the two aerial Pre-loads let out a screech and Ravage was able to side step Optimus' shot.

"Decepticons withdraw. Operation complete," Soundwave informed his team as he stepped away from an unmoving Ratchet.

The sand under Ironhide's wheels gave no traction as he applied brakes; his doors flew open before he stopped between Optimus and their enemy.

"Out NOW!" the command was more like a warning, as Ironhide's form started to shift mid slide.

The humans did not hesitate to follow Ironhide's order. They rolled head first into the sand on either side of Ironhide, and the three of them had their weapons trained on the enemy at almost the same instant. Ravage's remaining missile stuck the ground in front of the group throwing up a wall of sand. As a single unit, Soundwave and his team fired at the curtain of granules turning them into an infinite number of flying super heated liquid glass missiles. It would be enough to sting their optics and damage their more sensitive sensors, but the real threat came to the humans.

"Ironhide!" Optimus commanded his weapons office even as Ironhide moved to protect the soldiers. Not having time to do anything else, Ironhide dropped his arms in front of Epps and Lennox. The cannons were so massive they completely shielded the two humans.

"Those dirty Pit-spawed..." Ironhide growled trying to shake the now harden glass from his optics. His own fingers were not delicate enough to do the job without causing more damage. Optimus would have been in the same predicament except he had been free to cover his optics.

"Stand down, Ironhide," Optimus commanded as he finished extracting his legs from the sand.

"We're just goin' let him get away?!" Ironhide asked aggravation clear in his vocal processor even as he obeyed the order. His cannons retracted showering broken and flaked off glass everywhere.

"We are in no position to pursue," Optimus did not elaborate that without Teletran One or Jazz, it would be almost impossible to track Soundwave if he did not wish to be found. Instead Optimus gave Ironhide a more pressing matter to put his pent up energy to. "Right now Ratchet is injured and I believe Mikaela may be missing."

Ironhide turned sharply to look at his leader, "What do you mean 'missing'?"

"Before you arrived Ratchet was demanding to know her location from Soundwave, and Rumble did not seem to know where she was."

"It wouldn't be the first time the 'Cons lied about having prisoners," Ironhide reminded.

"No it would not, but either way we must return Ratchet to the complex to determine his condition and figure out what has happened."

After eons of similar battles, Ironhide and Optimus knew how to move with efficiency in its aftermath. A short time later Ratchet was loaded into Ironhide's bed, the humans giving silent empathy for a fallen comrade if not direct help. Optimus went ahead to determine the threat level, he was not carrying wounded and his sensors and scanners were in better working order than Ironhide's at the moment. But Optimus was not a scout, nor did he have the advanced scanners of his medical officer so he moved cautiously towards the complex.

The hologram that disguised the front entrance from unfriendly and curious eyes was not functioning when he arrived. The large bay doors salvaged from the _Ark_ where open but undamaged and clearly visible under the rocky overhang he and Ironhide had carefully placed as natural camouflage. Stealth was also not apart of his design so each resounding step he took inside the complex reminded the Autobot leader just how very large he was compared to those in his company.

Optimus found nothing out of place save for the storage room door that had been wielded shut, then sliced and peeled open from the inside, and the puddle of organic fluid on the floor near Teletran One. How Ratchet managed to get through armor plating with nothing but his medical blade was a mystery for another time, right now the immediate concern was Mikaela's well being.

Optimus knelt to get a better look and examined the blood with a heavy spark. It was only logical to assume that it was Mikaela's. How much blood could a human lose and still function? To Optimus it seemed that the little pool would not even coat his palm, but he remembered how very small the children had seemed in his hand so even this amount could not be good.

_Why had she been out in the open in the first place?_ Optimus asked himself as he went over to the makeshift emergency bunker. They had repeatedly discussed with Sam and Mikaela what to do in case of an attack, not only for their safety but also for the Autobots' piece of mind. Bumblebee seemed to be a natural at being able to not only engage the enemy, but to keep track of the humans in his care. The rest of the Autobots found it extremely difficult and processor wracking. They simply had never had to deal with something so small and fragile. Even new little sparklings that had essentially no armor or defensive capabilities had been more resilient.

As he had expected, Optimus found an empty modified glitchmouse trap. The trap had been a perfect camoflag for the emergency bucker, no Cybertroian would have looked twice at it. There had been no trail of fluid connecting either the bunker or the puddle, so it had been unlikely that Mikaela had sought refuge there, but he had to be certain. Optimus signaled to Ironhide that it was safe to enter and moments later they had Ratchet in the medical bay.

"Captain Lennox," Optimus said to get the human's attention as he helped Ironhide lay their medic out on an examination table. He continued when the man nodded. "I believe Mikaela was injured in front of our computer, Teletran One in the main area. I would appreciate it if you could give me your assessment of the scene."

Captain Lennox nodded then motioned for his Sergeant to follow him.

"How are your optics?" Optimus asked in an effort to distract himself from the mess before him.

He had been originally built to create members of his own kind, but that was a far cry from fixing something that was broken. Putting together a fresh form when everything was pristine and untainted was simple, but to work around algorithms and functions that had developed over eons of time, that was a true art, and Ratchet was the best he had ever known.

Optimus thought that if he could keep his processor busy he would not have to analyze how damaged Ratchet was, but it seemed that Ironhide was not going to let him off that easily.

"They'll keep. How bad is Ratchet?" Ironhide asked pointedly not giving his leader a chance to retreat.

"It is not good," Optimus sighed, picking up a medical scanner to confirm what he already knew to be true. He had seen the effects of Soundwave's form of interrogation too many times.

"Ratchet's processor has been overloaded from the inside."

Ironhide nodded but Optimus doubted that his weapons officer really knew the implications of that statement. If Ratchet had been a Pre-load it would have been a simple matter of replacing anything unfixable and rebooting his entire system. If that didn't work the Pre-load could be simply re-loaded with its original data. There would be memory loss but essentially the Pre-load would be exactly as it had been before it was damaged, but a Full-term would not survive such treatment.

During development, the strength of a Full-term's spark and the complexity of their processor became dependant on each other, damage to one was damage to the other. To date, no one had been able to explain the phenomenon and once the war began research on the subject was halted. Medical bots had developed techniques through trail and error to treat such damage, but there was still no one bot that had all the answers, at lease not since the First Days of Cybertron.

"Can anything be done?" Ironhide asked.

"We have a re-sequencer to align his pathways and Wheeljack's Energon bath will help speed up Ratchet's internal recovery program, but what Ratchet needs now is time."

"Time that Mikaela may not have," Sergeant Epps informed the Autobots. Optimus had not noticed their return. But now that they were here, he waited patiently for Captain Lennox's news.

"It's a lot of blood Optimus and it's pretty clear Mikaela didn't leave out of here under her own power. If the bleeding stopped soon after what was left in the other room, then blood loss shouldn't kill her, but the desert is cold at night. If she isn't given shelter she won't make it to morning," Captain Lennox told them. His voice held none of the anxiety Optimus could read on his face.

"Do you have anything to track her with?" Sergeant Epps asked, his feet shifting, ready for an order to spring into action.

"Without Ratchet, no," Optimus was forced to acknowledge. Ratchet had kept all of his findings and research secret, only informing his leader that there was no Cybertronian threat to humans and that he had found something unexpected about human physiology that the medic could not explain, yet.

"Bumblebee could do it," Ironhide broke in. "If he knew what he was tracking he could find a glitchmouse on a planet three sectors from here."

Optimus did not wish to bring up the fact that Bumblebee was two days away, and that by the time he arrived all that might be left was a body recovery. How could he ask that of the young bot? He should have been more diligent; he should not have let this temporary peace lull him into complacency so quickly. Now Mikaela and Ratchet had paid the price for his self-indulgence. Optimus Prime had never felt so small.

"We can get him here," Sergeant Epps said with conviction, his hands already moving to work his communications device. He only paused long enough to get orders from his commanding officer.

"Find a transport or get a transport as close to Bumblebee's location as you can," Captain Lennox instructed his Sergeant. "Use Priority One Clearance: Guests, and give them my code for confirmation. Then I want you to contact Defense Secretary Keller and update him on this situation."

The technical officer nodded before exiting to room, undoubtedly to establish clearer communications.

"We'll also need to contact Bumblebee and brief him on where to go and who to contact. With a little luck we might have him here in ten hours, sooner if he can be dropped off." The last of the Captain's statement was directed at Ironhide.

"Bumblebee is one of our more efficient fliers, he should do fine with a drop."

"In the mean time," Captain Lennox continued, "We'll get the Special Ops Unit out here searching."

"We can not ask you to do that," Optimus tried to reason. They still did not know who took Mikaela or why. It was possible that the female's abduction was the bait for a trap.

"You're not asking us Optimus, we're volunteering. Most of the members on that team owe their lives to Mikaela and Bumblebee, so I'd like to see you try and stop them." Captain Lennox left the medical bay leaving no chance for argument.

"They're a very tenacious species," Ironhide commented, sounding very pleased.

"Yes, I am being to realize this," Optimus agreed, but he wondered if tenacity alone would see them through this.

Thank you to all my reviewers. You made want to keep working at this even through my and my son's summer flu. Just as a warning, now that we're getting to the sticky part of the plot, the chapters may be slower in coming.


	8. The Mirror's Other Side

Human Interactions

The Mirror's Other Side

By Paperkat

08/14/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

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This chapter is short, but it has a lot of exposition, so hang with me guys. It will get exciting again in the next chapter.

The sky above was clear and blue, and below the crests of minuscule waves sparkled in the warm sun. Starscream thought he might be sick right here over the ocean. This 'rescue mission' had never been his intention when he had return to the _Nemesis_. His goal had been to broadcast to the Decepticons, to the universe, to anyone that would listen that Megatron had finally fallen. Then he had planed to take his rightful place as leader however, things had not gone as planned.

When he had arrived, Starscream had found the battleship frustratingly occupied. Despite his best efforts to leave them behind, Soundwave, his leeches, Hook and Thundercracker had found their way to the hidden ship. Starscream should not have been surprised. No doubt before his destruction, Frenzy had informed his master of Megatron's awakening and called the Decepticon leader's lapdogs to Earth. It still amazed Starscream that Megatron had not slipped and killed himself eons ago with all of the boot licking that went on in the Decepticon ranks.

Of course all _they_ could think about was restoring their precious leader. Starscream scoffed at the sentiment. When had Megatron ever lead them to anything but failure? The Decepticons were to be rulers of a new order. And what did they rule? A dead world. The Decepticons were going to bring their people into a new era of absolute peace and prosperity, and now they were scattered and without order. His people were finally going to take their place as the supreme beings in the universe under his rule, and now they lived as refugees on backwater worlds.

Starscream had seen first hand the so-called intelligent life that was drifting aimlessly through the ether of space. Before he had joined Megatron's ranks, he had been a prolific explorer. He had traversed all of known space and beyond. Starscream had even been to Earth before this farce. Back then, of course, there hadn't been much to see other than a handful of organisms in the shallow seas and a planet rolling with energy to be utilized.

The Golden Age of Cybertron may have never ended if the Council had have listened to his proposal to tap primordial Earth and other young planets for energy instead of living off the rations of the Allspark. Cybertron had needed to expand, but instead the Council made their idiotic declaration. Instead of providing for their citizens, they had made a decree to limit the work of Creators thus controlling the population.

As a result, a vast number of femmes had opted to leave Cybertron looking for a purpose for their existence beyond their intended purpose. Their primary function as caretakers of sparklings and younglings was becoming obsolete as fewer and fewer Cybertronians were sparked. Femmes were a minority to begin with, only one out of every four citizens were configured with the necessary equipment to properly nurse sparklings and nurture the developing processors of younglings, after the decree that dropped to one in twenty. To Starscream's knowledge, all that remained after eons of war were a handful of reconfigured femmes in the Autobot ranks.

Starscream's own Bonded had been one of the femmes unable to tolerate becoming useless under the Council's decree. Despite the connection they shared, she had been one of the first to leave, but Starscream had promised his Bonded that he would find a way so that she could return. And he _had_ found a way, but the egotistical Ruling Council had dismissed it, sighting the 'irreparable' damage harvesting energy from the developing planets would be to their evolving life.

What did it matter if some sponges and bacteria never develop a backbone? Their world was stagnant and existing without purpose. The Cybertronian Council would allow their planet to die of boredom before they would realize the need for change and betterment of their kind, and all for the sake of single celled organic life?

Most of the organic creatures polluting the universe were little more self-aware than a badly constructed Pre-load, and the worse of the organics were the humans. Given the bounty of a self-sustaining world and all they could think to do with it was destroy it. No, this planet was a gift; it was just given to the wrong species. Once Starscream dealt with this latest failure of Megatron's he could put his plan to restore Cybertron to all of its glory into action.

Of course Starscream wouldn't be having this problem if he had succeeded in separating all of Megatron's most loyal drones from the _Nemesis_, but unfortunately Barricade had butted in and insisted that Frenzy accompany them for long-range communications. Though the worse of the suck-ups had been left almost a whole sector behind, having that one loyalist in their ranks had ruined all of Starscream's plans to find Megatron and bury him for good.

So instead of returning to Cybertron and leading his people in rejuvenating their home world with the resources from this planet, he was stuck playing taxi to Soundwave's little parasite. Gathering useless Intel on the humans in an effort to restore Megatron's carcass. Presently, Laserbeak was adhered to the underside of Starscream's alternate form like a black and orange Earth tick. In fact, the little energon leech had tried to suckle from him as he would his master during the flight, of coarse a small discharge of Starscream's Null ray had stopped that.

When he was close enough, Starscream sent out a landing signal. He received confirmation to dock and readied himself, but didn't bother to let his hitchhiker know he was about to descend. The icy salt water hit like an electric shock, but it was the deceleration that really rocked Laserbeak causing the Pre-load to almost lose his hold.

The humans were foolish to think that the depths of their puny little oceans were enough to control them. Compared to the cold vacuum of space or even the vast gravity wells of their own home world this 'graveyard' was pathetic. The only thing they did get right was the water, and maybe that was what the simpering Autobots were counting on.

The salt, the sulfur of the thermal vents, and the pressure of the ocean pushing in the pure organic-ness of the whole slagging thing was enough to halt a spark. Halt it, but not destroy it. At worse it was a forced manual stasis, but it would take longer than the Earth's current history to permanently damage a Cybertronian under those conditions.

Of course Megatron's corpse had been in less than perfect condition when the humans had dumped it. Starscream would have smirked if he could, but he had learned long ago not to show any of his emotions other than the ones his 'leader' wished to see. It had been quite a pleasure to sit upon his perch during that final battle watching Prime and Megatron try their best to destroy each other, Starscream's only regret was that he had not stayed long enough to see the climax. If those human jets had not attempted to interfere he would have had the pleasure of witnessing the beginning of his own dream come true.

To think, the great and mighty Megatron had finally realized his so-called destiny and became one with the Allspark, just not in the way he had anticipated. Oh, how he would have relished watching that tiny little organic, as a human might say, 'Giving it to the Man'.

Starscream transformed as he approached the open decent tube, further slowing his speed. It had the bonus effect of finally flicking off the parasite. Laserbeak tried to scream his displeasure but the water muffled it in a comical way, only fueling Starscream's amusement. Once they were inside the tube it sealed itself ensuring that the pressure inside would maintain itself all the way down to the _Nemesis_. For lack of a more appropriate word, the two of them flew down to the air lock and from there they entered the _Nemesis._

If there had been any Carilian crystal windows, Starscream would have been able to see the thermal vents of the Laurentian Abyss that were now powering the _Nemesis_ in its constant struggle to keep the ocean out and its occupants functional. The very thing the Autobots probably counted on rendering the deactivated Decepticons completely inoperable was now sustaining them.

Laserbeak gave another indignant screech before racing off, no doubt to tattle-tail to his master. Starscream wasn't worried however. Soundwave wouldn't dare openly confront him without Megatron around.

The _Nemesis_ was massive and seemed even more so by the limited number of crewmembers. Counting Soundwave and his leeches as one unit, there were only five of them for a vessel meant for dozens. It was so desolate that if Starscream stood in the main corridor, he could hear the movements of his 'comrades' in the adjoining hallways.

But right now Starscream wasn't looking for company. All he wanted to do was to deliver his report and resume work on convincing the rest of the Decepticons to end this folly and return to Cybertron and recruit more forces to mine energy. Knowing that the other two Decepticon officers would only be in one place, Starscream made his way to Hook's surgical lab.

Once he entered, Starscream took a moment to look around. Littered about the lab were parts and pieces from various Decepticons. Some were killed prior to their arrival to Earth, and some were far more resent. One would have thought that Hook would have had some loyalty or even empathy to his own team member, but Bonecrusher's bits were unceremoniously dumped among the others. The self-proclaimed 'Greatest Physician Ever Sparked' was currently bent over one of the two fully intact carcasses in the room.

"Oh, you're back," was the surgeon's only response when Starscream leaned against a table covered in cannibalized parts. Hook hadn't even bothered to turn around when he had said it.

"Yes, the mission was singularly unsuccessful," Starscream reported, looking over at the unmoving Soundwave in the corner with Laserbeak on his shoulder. The metal bird looked quite smug for a Pre-load. "But, I imagine you already know that."

"I don't know Starscream," Hook said, looking up and giving him a self-satisfied, knowing smirk that set Starscream's processor on edge, "I think that it was highly successful."

"I hardly see how," Starscream drawled as he pushed around Frenzy's left over parts with the very tip of his finger causing Laserbeak to hiss angrily.

"But that is where you are wrong, as you often are," Hook told him, grinning in a way that made Starscream decidedly nervous and if he didn't know any better Starscream would have swore Soundwave was smiling too. "You were not here to witness my success."

"What?" Starscream asked unbelievingly. He couldn't possibly mean... Megtron's core spark casing was empty, they all had seen it. Visual confirmation was the only reliable way to determine if a Cybertronian was permanently deactivated. A spark was next to impossible to detect when it was either new or weak from injury, but it always glowed. From where he stood, Starscream still could not detect the light of a spark inside Megatron's shell.

"I have, once again, performed a miracle," Hook crowed, his smile only getting wider as he spoke. "And the work is remarkable, if I do say so myself."

"And you usually do," Starscream muttered sarcastically, but suddenly a thought occurred to him. "If you knew that you could repair him, why did you send me out with Laserbeak?"

"It got rid of _you_ didn't it?"

Starscream didn't even have time to seethe at the pure audacity of Hook's remark before his spark froze and a familiar presence linked with his communications channels.

"What is the matter Starscream? Not quite the outcome you wished for?" Megatron's voice slid over his internal receptors in sarcasm that was hard to ignore, but Starscream managed anyway. He knew better than to speak his mind.

"Of course not, Lord Megatron. I only live to serve you and our cause. Had I known that you would be reactivated so soon I would have waited patently instead of scouring the Earth to find a way to bring you back." Starscream knew the lie was transparent but it was a game that he and Megatron had played for as long as they had known each other.

Why Megatron wished to keep someone in his ranks that was so obviously critical of his leadership abilities was beyond Starscream. He would have terminated himself eons ago, but whatever Megatron's reasons were Starscream would cater to the Decepticon leader so long as it kept him in the upper ranks of the forces.

"Of course you would have, Starscream, of course you would have," Megatron agreed coolly. "Come closer and let us discuss the destruction of the Autobots and the rebirth of our world."

Starscream bowed his head and complied, still unnerved by the lifeless open chest of Megatron before him. Even as he got closer he could not detect by sight or by sensor a spark within the corpse, but the signature of the communications link was unquestionably Megatron's. Starscream looked up questioningly to Hook were he stood at the other table, arms folded and self satisfied smirk fully intact and then to Soundwave. The usually mute communications officer was chuckling with malevolent humor.

"That is why you will never lead, Starscream," Megatron said, his audible voice was biting and sharp and not his own. The body on the table Hook had been working at sat up and turned to Starscream. "Your inability to think outside of your own ambitions will always leave you second best."

"But this is impossible," Starscream insisted, looking between Megatron's corpse and the body that obviously must hold Megatron's spark.

The Decepticon leader's new visage smiled quite savagely, a look that did not quite fit the otherwise docile features.


	9. Too Good to be True

Human Interactions

Too Good to be True

By Paperkat

08/24/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

&

Hey guys! Just wanted to thank everyone for his or her review. Man, you guys have some wild (great) ideas about where this story is going, but hopefully I will still be able to surprise you.

For everyone that wants to know about Mikaela, you get a hint of news in this chapter. It's not a lot, but at least it's something, right? I'm not trying to be ultra suspenseful, I'm just trying to give a believable chain of events and timeline.

A quick word on femmes. Just remember that the previous chapter was from Starscream's point of view, which isn't necessarily accurate or sane. A more complete view should be coming soon.

Enjoy!

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PS This one's for you KaindeAmedha419!

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PSS This chapter is earning it's K+ rating due to the language so be forewarned.

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After three days of complete and total aggravation, there simply was only one way to describe this situation.

"Bullshit," Jazz muttered, his control finally snapping. He gave Ironhide a glare straight in the optics. The seated weapons officer didn't react, and it only fueled Jazz's mounting frustration.

"This is BULLSHIT!" Jazz roared into Ironhide's face, but just like everything else Jazz had tried to do, nothing happened. Jazz spun himself sideways and kicked in the air, his foot going completely through Glen's head.

"Man, did somebody leave the door open?" the dark skinned male asked as he shivered.

"Glen, just concentrate on getting Teletran to boot up," Maggie told him with a huff.

"Man, I can't believe you guys are letting that hood mess with Teletran," Jazz complained to Ironhide even though he knew he couldn't be heard. "You know he's gonna turn the whole fraggin' thing into a gaming station once your back is turned."

In truth, Jazz was rather impressed with Glen and Maggie's progress with Teletran One. For all intents and purposes, Teletran had become his computer. Technically it belonged to no one, but he was the closest Optimus' group had to a communications officer and it had fallen on him to maintain Teletran. The data loop that had ultimately stopped the intruder dubbed 'Tin Man' was Jazz's invention to stop unauthorized access. Between the two humans they had broken through the data loop but were then stopped by the mandatory lockout. Currently they were attempting to get Teletran back to at least manual operations.

Jazz wasn't sure what had happened over the last few months, as he was completely dead at the time, but from what he had been able to see over the last three days they were optics deep in a cluster glitch.

Ratchet was soaking in the energon bath apparently recovering from an attack from Soundwave, and making slow, steady progress. Ironhide was attempting to help the humans both inside and outside the complex, switching between the groups when the commotion was too much to handle. Optimus was tending to Ratchet, keeping himself updated on all of the human's activities, keeping Ironhide from poppin' a cap in the humans, and if that wasn't enough he was also trying to calm Bumblebee's manic behavior. But the boss man wasn't having much luck with that last one.

Jazz had only seen Bee twice in the last three days. The youngest Autobot would come in only for a flash recharge for himself, Sam ever present by his side. Bumblebee was in full-on battle mode status function. Both times Jazz had seen him, Bee's battle shields were down and his tactical scanners were up and he didn't deactivate them even when speaking to Optimus.

The only other time he had seen Bee this upset was when they lost Cliffjumper. Bumblebee never forgave himself for not being able to save the near suicidal bot when he attacked a whole Decepticon battle squad solo. But Cliffjumper hadn't been under Bumblebee direct protection as Sam and Mikaela were.

The human boy had looked like hell. In those three days he had not changed his clothing, his hair was most liking permanently plastered to his head with sweat and Jazz was sure that the dark marks under Sam's eyes were not a good sign.

"I've got it!" Glen hollered jumping up, Fruity Pebbles falling from his lap onto the floor. Jazz wasn't sure, but it seemed that the hacker was fueled exclusively by the breakfast cereal.

"Are you serious?" Maggie asked excitedly rushing over to look at Glen's screen. Jazz moved to a position behind them to try and angle in a look-see.

"No, I just like yelling and standing for my health," Glen told her sarcastically. He then looked over to Ironhide. "Alright Metal Man, fire her up."

"I do have a proper designation," Ironhide grumbled his head on his hand where he was leaning against Teletran's manual control panel waiting to be useful.

Jazz felt sorry for 'Hide. The massive mech had never dealt well with prolonged crisis situations. Ironhide had been configured for combat and he thrived on action, he just didn't have it in him to sit and wait. But with no immediate threat to eliminate, Ironhide's restlessness was mounting by the second. The situation was being further aggravated by him seeing others working to a solution while he sat around waiting for a threat that may never materialize.

Ironhide stood to reach the required keys and roughly pounded in the start up sequence. Jazz winced in sympathy glad that Blaster wasn't around to see his baby treated so roughly. A moment later Teletran's screen flared to life, and then promptly went to a monochromic display.

"Tele's never done that before," Jazz commented tilting his head as if it would change the view.

"Great Glen, you've just given an alien computer the Blue Screen of Death," Maggie drawled, her accent heavier than normal. "You didn't upload Windows on Teletran did you?"

"Do I look like an idiot?" Glen retorted, his head rocking on his shoulders. "Just give me a minute, girl. I'm just getting started."

Glen laced his fingers together and cracked them loudly before hitting a few keystrokes on his computer. Suddenly a booming rhythmic beat flooded the room. Maggie threw up her hands to cover her ears. Ironhide threw up his cannons to obliterate the enemy. Glen's massive human frame started to pounce and weave to the music, his arms pulled up close to his chest as his shoulders rocked back and forth.

Maggie was attempting to yell over the sound, but even standing directly behind her Jazz couldn't hear her. Ironhide retracted his cannons, but not the fierce scowl on his face. Glen ignored them both, his body continuing to ungulate to the beat even as his fingers started flying over his keyboard. To Jazz, it seemed that the young man was in heaven.

A movement at the doorway, caught Jazz's attention. Optimus Prime stood there, a solemn look pulling at the features of his face. Ironically, it was Glen that was the next to notice the Autobot leader. Looking up, the young man grinned sheepishly, and a few keystrokes later the volume dropped to a more reasonable level. Optimus acknowledged that the change was acceptable by nodding his head once and returning from whence he came.

At that point, Jazz decided to follow. His leader had a medical scanner in his hand, which meant that it was time for Ratchet's check up. Jazz by design was a researcher; by nature and need he had become a special operations saboteur. The intricate, fun-loving pranks that had once amused and frustrated his co-workers before the war had became high stakes missions that were anything but games. The need was still there to observe, or spy depending on how you looked at it, even if all of his mechanoid functions required for surveillance were currently absent.

Of course you probably couldn't getting any stealthier than being a ghost. At least, Jazz thought he was a ghost. It was the closest human definition to his situation he remembered, but he was unable to double check on that because of his lack of access to the World Wide Web.

Cybertronians didn't have any belief in an afterlife like humans did. It was generally believed that when a spark could no longer be held within a body that it simply dissipated, but an old memory kept persisting at the back of Jazz's consciousness. He remembered holding his femme's hand his small systems revving in stress over something the twins, which were also in her care, had said to him in cruel jest.

"Am I going to die?" he had asked, quite sure he already knew the answer, after all the twins were older than him and they were so much smarter than he was.

_Man, how time changes everything_. Jazz thought to himself remembering the twins fondly, hoping that somewhere out in space they were still kicking up chaos.

His femme had stopped outside of the clinic were he had received his experimental spark strengthening treatments and knelt to look into his face. When he was a much older mech Jazz had learned that it wasn't a forgone conclusion that a Spark would take to the body built for it. Sometimes it was an incorrectly constructed housing or an inattentive femme, but mostly it was a mystery why some Sparks just seemed to refuse to stay where they were put. But typically it was soon after activation that the sparkling would stop functioning, not at the age he had reached when he had started having problems.

"The twins?" she had asked him, and all he had been able to do was nod in stunned amazement that his femme seemed to know everything, an opinion that had never changed over time. "You are not going to die, Jazz."

"But SunnySwipe said that my spark was gonna go out like an old telray tube, cause I'm still too little," he had pouted and at the time he had believed it. All of the other sparklings that had been brought online at the same time as himself had already gone on to their first upgrade, while he had been too weak to go through the procedure.

"What have I said about listening to those two?" She had asked.

"To not to. But they said.."

"I know what they said, but they're wrong," she had told him earnestly. "You're just pacing yourself this time around."

"This time around?" he had asked confused as she stood and continued inside the clinic.

"You are an old Spark Jazz and you know better than to rush through your youth." Before Jazz had had a chance to figure out what she had been talking about, Jazz's favorite mech cut in.

"Telling my little buddy old femme tales again, eh Ariel?"

"Orion!"

Jazz remembered throwing himself at the Apprentice Creator and Orion had reacted as he always had by picking him up and tossing him in the air. Orion had been the only bot that hadn't treated him like he would break if he touched him. Even Ariel had treated him like glass.

It was a strange thing to have memories of how Optimus had been and how he was now. He was the same and yet he was completely different. Gone was the mech that secretly let a disabled sparkling run around unchecked while shamelessly flirting with that sparkling's femme. But Optimus was the same bot that knew exactly what to say, when you needed to hear it. Ariel used to call Orion an old Spark too, which he always denied laughingly as nonsense.

But what if the old femme's tale was true and not just a story they told themselves as comfort when a sparkling failed to thrive? What if Sparks could carry on whole and intact? Could that be what he was now? Had Ariel been correct and this life he remembered was not his first? Well whatever the truth was Jazz was currently stuck in a non-caporal form and it sucked, big time.

Jazz made his way to the medical bay, and as expected, Optimus was running diagnostics on their injured medic. Stim cables in the vertical standing energon bath were suspending Ratchet in a very Skywalker-esque way, sans the tighty whiteys of course.

"Well, good morning old friend," Optimus said, and for the first time Jazz noticed that Ratchet's optics were dimly lit and seemingly looking towards the floor. Of course there was no way of telling for sure if Ratchet was completely conscious, but whatever readings Optimus had on the scanner must have led him to think that their medic was at least semi-aware.

"But I suppose it would be impossible to remain in stasis through that racket in the main room," Optimus continued conversationally as he adjusted the mix of the energon bath and the simulation from the suspending cables. Apparently Optimus had not lost any of his excellent bedside manner when he had been reconfigured, hopefully Ratchet was conscious and taking notes.

Jazz came to stand right next to the tank enjoying the only sensation other than frustration he had felt since waking to this ghost existence three days earlier. The only thing so far that had felt solid to him was the glow from the tank. When he was alive, Jazz had never noticed the bath emitting anything other than light, but now that he was dead, it felt warm, heavy and a sensation Jazz imagined to be described as fuzzy. The only thing so far that had felt solid to him was the light from the energon bath, and it was probably the only thing keeping him at least marginally sane right now. Jazz would have never imagined that being ignored would be so emotionally draining.

"No wonder dissin' the twins worked so well," Jazz said to the room that didn't answer back.

There was a cheer from the main room, but this time it was both humans and Ironhide instead of just Glen.

"Looks like we might finally have some good news," Optimus said with a grin not looking up from his scanner to see Ratchet give a twitch.

Jazz stared hard at Ratchet, looking for any more signs of conscious movement. When Optimus moved around the bath to where he was standing, Jazz quickly sidestepped out of the way. He wasn't sure what would happen if he touched another Autobot but Jazz didn't think he could stand to have one of his friends walk through him as the humans did, it was bad enough that they couldn't hear him.

"Well, Ratchet, that is all that I can do for now," Optimus commented as he placed the medical scanner in its slot in the housing of the bath. The Autobot leader placed his hand on the clear Carilian crystal and told the medic in their native language to return to them soon. Optimus left but Jazz remained behind for the moment.

"Man, oh man, Ratchet, what the Pit is goin' on with me," Jazz asked the medic for the first time that day. The Autobot ghost rapped his head against the bath, the light of the energon never actually letting him touch the crystal. Jazz looked up, and for the first time since his awakening found someone watching him.

The startled Autobot jumped back. Ratchet's optics were almost at full illumination and they had been looking right at him, but now the injured medic seemed to be looking around for something. Jazz was only one step back from the bath, but he reclaimed the distance and assumed his previous position almost flush with the top to bottom viewing panel.

Ratchet's optics tracked back to where Jazz was standing and stayed there. Just to make certain that he wasn't seeing what he wanted to see, Jazz slid from one side to the other, the whole time his attention locked with Ratchet's very slight optic movements.

"You can see me?" Jazz whispered barely daring to hope.

He took a quick look at the scanner's display, showing Ratchet's processor actively rocketing upward. Just to see it happen one more time, Jazz jigged and then jagged, and once again Ratchet followed. Jazz would even swear that the medic glared at him.

"You can see me! Hell ya!" Jazz cried, waving crazily at Ratchet who was just able to lift his hand at the wrist in return.

"Optimus!" Jazz yelled excitedly towards the main room. "Optimus! Ratchet can see me!"

Not getting a response, Jazz took off running for the main room. He busted into the room and then straight through the mech he was trying to find. It wasn't until he had to turn around to see Optimus staring past him to Teletran's screen that Jazz remembered he predicament.

"Well, I'm glad no one saw that bonehead move," Jazz grumbled to himself.

"Not only do you have all of the commercial cable channels," Glen was informing his audience. "You also get the local shiznit too."

Glen keyed in a few strokes and Teletran's screen went from some Spanish soap opera to Local Nine Tranquility New.

"…with no chance of rain. So it looks good for the golf tournament this weekend, back to you Melissa."

"That is impressive Glen Whitmann, but what we need is..." Optimus cut himself off short and focused on the mammoth screen.

"As you may remember Mikaela was reported missing over a week ago..." the newscaster said filling the silence Optimus left behind.

"Glen..." Optimus began to say, the urgency in his voice clear.

"Already on it Big Guy," Glen responded his hands flying over his keyboard. "Teletran's got built in Tivo."

The image on the screen rolled backwards to a point in time just before Optimus had started talking. Everyone, including Jazz moved closer, their attention riveted to the screen.

"Thank you Ken. In other local late breaking news, authorities in Nevada have released that a Lake Mead fisherman recovered what appears to be the bloodied clothes and personal affects of local Tranquility teen, Mikaela Banes."

"Oh, no," Maggie gasped as she slid into a near by chair.

Jazz had not heard much about Mikaela's disappearance. The hunt for the human girl had started before he had awakened and the majority of the search effort had been taken over by the military, Bumblebee and Sam. But Jazz did know that she had been severely injured, and if Captain Lennox was to be believed there was little chance that she had survived after eleven days. At this point, just about everyone was searching for a body, only Bee and Sam held out hope that Mikaela was still alive.

"As you may remember Mikaela was reported missing over a week ago by her boyfriend's parents when she failed to show for a planned dinner engagement. Social services and local authorities did not initially consider foul play as Mikaela's foster parents believed that Mikaela and her boyfriend had planned on running away together when Mikaela turned eighteen next week. For more on this we're going to our reporter in the field."

"They think she ran away?" Ironhide scoffed his hands flexing in aggravation. Optimus shook his head, his expression pained and thoughtful.

"Thank you, Melissa. Right now I'm standing outside the home of Mikaela's boyfriend where authorities are questioning both the boy and his parents about the latest information regarding Mikaela's disappearance."

"Ironhide, find Captain Lennox and inform him of this situation if he is not already aware," Optimus commanded as the reporter outside of Sam's house continued to report on the nothingness that was happening outside the home.

"We need to know everything the human authorities have found out and what their next move will be." Optimus gave a sigh, "We cannot let other innocent humans be harmed by this 'Tin Man'."

"Lake Mead is created by the Hoover Dam," Maggie commented. "It can't just be a coincidence."

"I agree," Optimus said gravely. "This needs to be investigated closely, but right now Ratchet is incapacitated and Bumblebee is not responding to my communications."

"I think I know why," Glen broke in, turning up the Teletran's volume in the process. Everyone returned their attention to the screen and the drama that was playing out.

"You have to let me go!" Sam yelled at the two police officers, one on each arm. The boy's hands were cuffed behind him but it did little to curb his struggles. Jazz wasn't sure if anyone else noticed, but Bumblebee in the background of the camera shot was slowly darkening the Carilian crystal that made up his windshield and windows to an opaque black.

"Mikaela's still out there and she needs help!" Sam continued to rant, his thrashing increased when they approached the police cruiser. Suddenly, Bumblebee's radio kicked on, blaring at a level that caused sound distortions over the news crew's sound equipment.

"You got a fast car. And I got a plan to get us out of here…"

The rest of the song, if it even continued to play, was drowned out by the roar of Bumblebee's engine. The camaro's tires squealed in place on the Witwicky's driveway, just long enough for the humans in front of it to beat a hasty retreat. Unnaturally black exhaust spewed from Bee's tailpipe as he sped down the driveway and out into the street where he executed a tight 360. At that point, all of the humans were screaming but nothing could be seen past the thick layer of smoke. Jazz hadn't been aware that Bee's could even generate a smokescreen let alone use it so effectively. By the time the black haze cleared the last image the camera collected was Bumblebee several blocks down the street, with Sam's legs still kicking to get in through the open passenger side window.

"This we didn't need," Ironhide said flatly, his internal systems grinding and his optics flaring brighter. If they were ever able to catch and calm Bumblebee down, Jazz was sure that Ironhide was going to be giving the young bot a lesson in proper strategic withdrawals, probably with his sub-zero canon.

"Ironhide, find Bumblebee and Bring. Him. In. I have tolerated his irrational behavior for too long, and it is now jeopardizing our efforts," Optimus commanded, his dark blue optics fierce. "Maggie Madsen, inform the necessary parties of this situation and see what can be done to minimize the damage, I will help Glen finish his work on Teletran One."

Jazz noticed that none of the mentioned parties argued or hesitated. Ironhide transformed right there in the main room and peeled out. Maggie had her computer to her chest, her cell phone to her ear as she headed off in the same direction.

For the rest of the afternoon the complex was quite. Glen and Optimus worked amazingly well and efficiently together. Jazz suspected that the Autobot leader's mere commanding presence was enough to curb Glen's tendency to veer off tangent. Hoping for some small acknowledgment of his existence, Jazz had returned to the medical bay but had found Ratchet frustratingly in deep stasis. With absolutely nothing else to do, Jazz paced in the main room waiting for something, anything to happen to alleviate the intense boredom and anxiety. Soon Jazz would regret wishing for some action.

Before night fell Teletran had full manual capacities. While Glen had his dinner of Fruit Pebbles, Optimus ran the computer through full diagnostics and poured through the files available concerning the Tin Man's invasion. The Autobot leader still couldn't bring up a visual file to identify the Cybertronian, but Optimus was able to determine what the Tin Man had been up to.

"It would seem that our intruder was attempting to upload something," Optimus murmured as he scrolled through the data logs.

"Is it a virus?" Glen asked, wiping his large hands on his chest, covering his black shirt with brightly colored flakes.

"It does not appear so."

"Could be a Trojan," Glen offered, but seeing Optimus' blank look the hacker explained. "Something that looks like nothing until you try to use it, then your whole system freaks out."

"If that was the Tin Man's intention I do not believe he was successful," the large mech replied, his voice softening as he turned to Glen. "Your timely interference may have saved what little resources we currently have, and I thank you for that."

Glen beamed. Jazz sat back and waited, he knew Optimus too well to think that his leader was just going to overlook the human's blatant disregard for proper protocol.

"However, in the future if you find yourself becoming bored, please inform us so that we can come up with a mutually acceptable way for you to rid yourself of idleness."

"Where's the fun in that?" Glen asked. Optimus just shook his head.

"Incoming injured Autobot detected," Teletran informed the room, gaining the undivided attention of everyone.

"Ironhide? Bumblebee?" Glen asked even as turned to his console that was still connected to Teletran's systems.

"Ironhide reports being uninjured, Bumblebee is still not answering communications," Optimus supplied. "However, both are out of Teletran's range. We have only been able to activate internal sensors."

"Well, no duh," a familiar voice rasped tiredly from just outside the hallway door.

Jazz's universe tilted on its axis as a figured stumbled through the doorway. Optimus ran forward and caught the dirt-incrusted mech before he had a chance to hit the floor. Inside Jazz was screaming his denial, not even being able to voice the stark rage and terror he felt.

"I thought…" Glen started to say but cut himself off.

Optimus cradled the mech to him, his optics softening to match his voice.

"Take it easy Jazz. I have you."

No one but the ghost in the room saw the silver mech's optics slide from blue to purple, or the self-satisfied smirk that distorted its once friendly features.


	10. Welcome to Oasis

Human Interactions

Welcome to Oasis

By Paperkat

08/29/07

Disclaimer: The Transformers movie and all related material belong to Hasbro, Dreamworks and Paramount, concept originally created and licensed through Takara Co. LTD.

The Disclaimer's Disclaimer: I stole the above disclaimer from Straya. Please for give me

Looking down at the mound of data pads before her Elita was sure the Matrix had made a mistake placing her in charge, or at the very least was having a good laugh at her expense right now. Her full designation of Elita One held the same position as a Prime over the femme population; it was just tragically unfortunate that the title did not also come with instructions or a warning label.

"Energy reports, maintenance reports, recreation reports, weather reports. Is it really necessary that I know absolutely _everything_ that happens around here?"

"You are the boss," Chromia teased, her feet propped up on Elita's desk, her heavily weapon incrusted arms behind her head.

"Just for that I should put you in charge of morale for the next work assignment cycle," Elita tormented back, shuffling through the data pads and arranging them by priority.

"Go ahead, but I'm not taking the heat if there's a full scale mutiny."

Elita laughed because she knew her long time friend was correct. Chromia was a lot of things; a superb security officer, an even better special weapons sergeant and a top-notch disciplinarian, but being able to lighten damp spirits was not one of her strong suits.

"It would at the very least give you a minor riot to boost your morale," Elita suggested, knowing that the need for Chromia's abilities had been practically non-existent when they went into hiding on this planet. The few younglings that Chromia had cared for after evacuating Cybertron had all left to join the war once they matured and that was long before they had come here. And since the whole point of them being here was to go completely unnoticed until they were called upon, Chromia simply had nothing to do, or at least nothing to do that truly interested her.

"True, a riot would be nice, and it would give the medics something to worry about other than fussing over ridiculous routine system checks," Chromia snorted, her displeasure clear on her expressive face.

"Well, you could always help me out with this energy dispute," Elita suggested, sliding a pad over for Chromia's inspection. "It seems that the Gatherers are starting up trouble with Sorters. They're claiming that the Allspark energy is being contaminated with power from the collections grid."

For almost 20,000 years they had been siphoning, storing and maintaining energy from the Allspark as the Matrix had directed. Of course to the great disappointment of the thirty femmes in residence, only the Allspark's unique energy was taken, and not the pearls of life Cybertronians used to create their own kind. Not because they had not attempted, but because the Cube had seemingly refused to relinquish its treasure no matter what they had tried. Of course Alpha Trion, the only creator in Oasis and to their knowledge, the only creator to have survived the war, refused to build a protoform even if they were able to coax a Spark free.

But despite their disappointment the femmes went about their daily duties, waiting for when they would be needed again. It was only in the last hundred years or so that they had to resort to remote operations to remain undetected by humans when the Cube was discovered. At that point hope of new sparklings was lost to them.

"Again?" Chromia asked in miserable disbelief. "I thought we cleared that up when we dug them their own tunnels and provided a completely independent power system."

"I know, I know, but this seems to crop up every couple of hundred years or so, and with the recent disruption of the Allspark's energy flow, the Gatherers are on edge."

"The humans are probably just messing around near the surface connections again and the inputs have retracted to a stealth position until the connections can be reestablished," Chromia reasoned with a shrug. "Sector Seven is always fiddling with upgrades to their system."

"That is true," Elita agreed. "But it has never taken this long to reestablish before."

"I could lead a small group to investigate," Chromia suggested, her excitement almost tangible.

"No offense 'Mia but there's nothing small about anything you do," Elita reminded her friend gently. "No, I think we should wait a bit longer before going to the surface. The risk of discovery with Megatron up there is just too great unless there is a serious problem."

With the arrival of primitive man to this section of the Earth, the Matrix had directed them to move into the tunnels below the Allspark to avoid interfering with the young species. The incursion of Sector Seven only made them retreat deeper and abandon almost all forays to the surface. It was made quite clear to all of them that it was not yet time to come out of hiding.

"Besides, a surface mission would require Alpha's direct approval and he has locked himself away in his workshop for days," Elita reminded.

"How has the old coot been doing?" Chromia asked kindly as she sat up, all illusion of aloofness dropped.

"Who can say?" Elita said as she transferred all the day's reports into her personal data pad. "He's been obsessed with some new discovery of his, and every time I've questioned him about it he just smiles and says, 'You will see soon enough'. But I suppose it's better than him wasting away down there."

Chromia nodded with sympathy. Femmes had the luxury of being and doing whatever they pleased with their existence. From almost the first moment of activation, femmes would expand their abilities beyond that of the single interest they had been created for. Their counterparts had no such luxury and had to be completely reconfigured in order to change what they had been made to do. Alpha Trion was a creator that had forbidden himself from creating and Elita feared that it was slowly driving him mad.

"I am off to the Cycling Chamber, you coming with?" Elita asked though she already knew the answer.

"Nah, you go on, I'm going to go help Kup and Hot Rod put the battle droids back together so me and the kid can take them apart again later," Chromia said as she stretched to a standing position.

It always amazed Elita how tall her friend was. As a rule, femmes tended to be smaller and more delicate then their counterparts, most never upgrading beyond minibot size. With the exception of Alpha Trion, Chromia towered over everyone in Oasis. Her armor and weaponry were second only to military designed bots, but her strategic mind was the best Elita had ever known. Only Prowl came close. Optimus' military strategist tended to error on the side of pure logic, which didn't always account for all variables in Elita's opinion.

The Cycling Chamber was thankfully only a short walk away since Elita had waited until the last moment to prepare for the meeting. Five turns later she entered the monitoring room and took a moment to marvel at the sheer beauty of it.

The room had been mined into a smooth imperfect oval and had the appearance of being the work of natural wind erosion. Anchored to the walls and ceiling were clear conduits of Allspark energy channeled through regulating monitors. The stone in this area was nearly pure white and glittered with tiny crystal facets that perfectly reflected the swirling blue, red and mixing purple light.

The Allspark energy had to be continuously circulated for it to be maintained properly. Without constant supervision and adjustments it would weaken and eventually fade, becoming nothing more than light and warmth. It wasn't a perfect or permanent solution but it was the best they could do for now. There were three mechs assigned to permanent duty cycle here for the sake of consistency and Elita was greeted by two of them, the Head Gatherer and her assistant.

"Good morning Elita," Moonracer said as she directed the femme leader to a chair at a round table just inside the entryway.

"Good morning, Moonracer, Tally," Elita said in return, acknowledging both representatives of the Gatherers before taking the offered seat.

Elita had been initially surprised that Moonracer had chosen to serve the community in this manner. The lavender mech was an expert sharpshooter and was a bit on the free spirit side to shackle herself to a job that required such precise demands. Of all the residents of Oasis, Tally was the more logical choice for Head Gatherer, being a number cruncher and obsessive compulsive about perfection, but in hindsight it made perfect sense. Tally was just too abrasive to be an affective leader and Moonracer never failed at anything she but her processor to.

"So shall we begin with the list of grievances or the accumulated data from the last five work cycles," Tally asked even as she pressed a data pad into Elita's hand.

"As you can see…"

Elita tried to pay attention to everything Moonracer's assistant said, really she did, but it was almost word for word the same speech Tally had given almost two hundred years earlier.

_Elita._

The gentle, hesitant call almost startled the femme leader into responding verbally. Since coming to Earth, inter-cranial communications had dwindled to almost nothing. With only thirty-three Full-term Cybertronians and five Pre-loads in residence in Oasis, face-to-face communications was considered more desirable. Everyone was within walking distance of each other and it seemed rather silly to communicate as if they were on the other side of the planet.

_Yes, sir?_ Elita replied to Alpha's call as she smiled to Tally to assure her that she was still listening.

_You are needed below_, he said simply.

_Do you need me immediately?_ Elita asked even as she responded vocally to a question Moonracer asked. _I am in the middle of a meeting_.

_I don't know how long I can maintain_... Alpha Trion stuttered to a stop. The trace of fear and sorrow in his voice made Elita hold up her hand to the Head Gatherer in front of her to put a hold on their conversation. _Please come quickly_, her creator begged.

_I am on my way_.

"I must take care of something," Elita said by way of an apology. Moonracer exchanged a glance with her next in command before commenting.

"Is everything alright?"

Elita was not in the habit of downplaying situations, and she had learned that the individuals under her authority appreciated it.

"I do not know, but I may be busy for quite some time," she explained as she stood to leave.

"Then we will reschedule for a later date," Moonracer said, nodding to Elita.

Elita nodded in return and made her way to the deepest sub-level of Oasis. Even before Sector Seven had made it too dangerous for the citizen's of Oasis to attend to the Allspark directly, Alpha Trion's lab was the lowest occupied tier. It had been there first before the femmes' arrival to Earth and once they had arrived the femmes had built off of Alpha Trion's deeply entrenched starship. Very much like the ants they had patterned their compound construction after, Oasis was a branching, downward facing, cone like series of tunnels. And like the insects, the Cybertronians had no elevators.

It took longer than Elita would have liked to reach Alpha Trion's lab. The path down was not a direct one and brought her into contact with many Oasis citizens. As Elita One she was leader, but the position was more or less an elected seat unlike a Prime that was built to be a commander and expected to be followed. So it followed that she was something of a celebrity and was at least greeted if not outright stopped by the random citizens she encountered. Fortunately they would graciously let her go with little fuss when she explained that she was busy with something.

Elita was not sure how long it had taken her to accept her role. She supposed it was a forgone conclusion that something had to change once the war began and she lost Orion. It wasn't something that she liked to remember or think about too much, but it was that loss of home, security and love that had forged the new mech that she was now. She had to be strong, if not for herself and the citizens of Oasis that trusted her with their lives then for the memory of those she had lost. She could not let her people simply drift out of existence without a fight.

It was a feeling all the femmes shared. Whether it was something that was ingrained into their unique codes or whether it was simply a species need to survive, it really did not matter. If something was not done, Cybertronians would die just as their planet had because of a war that would not end. Some of the femmes believed that they would have to wait until all of their counterparts had destroyed each other before the Matrix would allow them to continuing there race. She sincerely hoped it would not come to that.

Elita finally reached the heavily armored door to Alpha's lab. Since the laboratory was actually Alpha Trion's entire ship almost completely intact deep below the Earth's surface the entrance was the vessel's bay doors and Elita had to punch in a code to open them. She did not venture down here often, Alpha Trion treasured his privacy. No, this was far from the first time she had been inside, but this was the first time she had entered and felt uneasy.

"Hello," Elita called into the semi-darkness. None of the ship's elimination was active and the area was lit solely by the glow of equipment screens. "Alpha Trion?"

Only silence greeted her. Moving forward, Elita moved towards the back of the gutted spaceship, littered with half realized projects and abandoned failures. Alpha Trion was not an inventor, but a creator, and while the two were closely linked Alpha lacked the ability to shrug off failure. For a creator failure meant death, for an inventor it simply meant another opportunity to try something new. Alpha Trion could not bring himself to complete or abandon any of his projects and consequently the lab was jammed packed with junk. Finally a sound to her right alerted her to the location of her creator.

Turning a corner created by a pile of stacked crates, Elita found Alpha Trion bent over his workbench. Her creator's matte silver exterior seemed to glow green with the light from a container by his right side. The light was just bright enough to cast a blurry shadow on the opposite wall. It was an unusual color for a light source with blue, red and white being more common, but it was the deep richness of the color that truly made it unique. How could something so dark give so much light?

"Time, I just need more time," Alpha Trion mumbled his thin frame sagging.

"Alpha Trion?" Elita called again a little louder than she had before even though she stood almost directly behind him now. But he still did not respond.

Elita stepped forward and she felt something crunch underfoot. Looking down and adjusting her optics to compensate for the light level in the room, Elita found that the metal floor was covered in dirt and rocks. The tunnel floors of Oasis had been covered in metal long ago. They had discovered that by simply walking around they were eroding their rock floors too quickly, so this much debris could have only come from outside.

She knew that Alpha Trion had his own tunnel connecting to the surface. In fact Elita was the only other one that knew about it. It was intended for emergency use only, if they were ever overrun it was their last hope for escape, but if the enemy knew of its existence it would lead them directly behind their defenses.

"You have been to the surface," Elita accused, anger starting to rise within her. It had been decades since the last time anyone in Oasis had seen the sun and yet her eccentric creator had recently taken a stroll without any consideration for the safety of the other citizens.

"I have," Alpha answered for the first time, the graveness in his voice halted any reprimand she might have said. "I could not wait, I should have waited, but I didn't know, I never realized..."

He didn't finish but turned to her and griped Elita's arms tightly with his long fingered hands. She was so startled all she could do was stare and his hands and the dried red-brown mud on them.

"I need time, Elita," her creator urged her, "and you can give me that time."

Dread lodged in her Spark. He couldn't possibility be asking her to use the ability the Matrix gave her. Alpha Trion knew how dangerous it was, he had been the one to warn her against using it. How could things have gotten so critical to be contemplating such a plan?

"I have made a terrible mistake, Elita." He let go of her then, returning to his workbench. He gathered something into his arms.

"Alpha, please. Tell me what has happened," Elita begged, following her creator. "What do you want me to do?"

"Care for her."

"I don't under…"

Whatever Elita was about to say drifted away and died. In Alpha Trion's arms was a small sparkling unlike she had ever seen before. It did not have the indeterminate shape of a protoform as most newly activated sparklings would. The portions of its exterior that were exposed above the blanket it was wrapped in were smooth and appeared seamless as any finely crafted racing form might have been constructed for a mature Cybertronian. It was small but not as small as a microbot would have been as a sparkling. Elita activated systems she had left dormant for so long she feared they would not function. She was pleasantly surprised that she could now detect the soft cycling call meant to update the femme caretaker of the sparklings condition.

"It's starving," Elita accused hotly, resisting the urge to snatch the little one away from Alpha Trion, and possibly cause more damage.

"I tried to supplement, but her needs are too great," Alpha said softly willingly handing the sparkling over.

"How long has it been since it was activated? When was the last time you tried a transfer? Were you even going to bother telling us about it?" Elita demanded having no sympathy for her creator and his obvious suffering as she unwrapped the bundle completely.

The sparkling gave a shudder and pulled its limbs in towards its chest. Immediately Elita could see the heat loss as the tiny life's systems attempted to compensate. Cybertronians did have a minimum functional temperature but the ambient room temperature should have been more than sufficient and yet this sparkling seemed not to be able to tolerate it. Now realizing the need for the thermal covering, Elite wrapped the sparkling back up.

"What is wrong with it?" she asked Alpha Trion as she attempted to link with the sparkling's basic internal communication and could not establish a connection.

"I never intended for that protoform to be used. It was experimental and not all of the systems are functioning to full capacity, but there was no other choice." For the first time since she had entered the workshop, Alpha Trion looked her straight in the optics when he spoke to her. "I can fix this Elita, I just need more time," he tucked a loose corner of the blanket around the now softly purring sparkling.

Elita let herself be escorted out of the workshop without a fuss. It was becoming obvious that Alpha Trion was not going to be anymore forthcoming to the sparkling's origin, but that was secondary to the said sparkling's needs. She needed to get it to the medical wing for immediate attention.

"I have sealed the emergency escape exit and all other entrances should be sealed as well," he told her once they were out in the tunnel leading to the rest of Oasis. Before she could ask why, he supplied an answer to her unspoken question. "Megatron is awake and the Allspark has been lost. Now more than ever we must insure that we are not discovered."

Elita nodded and turned away to leave but she had one last question.

"You kept calling it 'she', sparklings don't truly orient until their first upgrade and I have never heard of anyone accurately predicting a femme metamorphosis. How can you be so sure?"

Alpha Trion did smile then. It was that sad, soft expression on his haunted face that finally succeeded in enlisting some sympathy from Elita.

"There is a moment when they first look at you in innocent wonder and your Spark just knows that they are different, special, and meant for more than you had planned."

Alpha Trion retreated back into his workshop and solidly locked the door behind him. Elita hurried on to the upper levels, her precious package tucked in the crook of her left arm and close to her chest. The citizens that she had seen on the way down were still there. The greetings they would have given hauled as they realized what she had cradled to her side.

It was a strange procession that followed her. No one stopped her, no one dared. No doubt they all had already activated their individual monitoring systems and were aware of the need for haste. The news must have spread silently through out Oasis for by the time Elita arrived at the clinic almost all of its citizens were there.

When the medical bay door opened to allow her entrance, Elita was nearly run over by Hot Rod and Kup as they exited. By the way the young mech was rubbing the new looking patch over his left forearm, Elita guessed that they had been in for repairs and not a social visit.

"Whoa-ho, when did we get a squirt?" the flashy barely out of youngling stage mech asked staring down at the bundle in Elita's arms, blocking her path in the process. Obviously the only two non-femme mechs in Oasis had been left out of the compound wide status alert.

Elita gave Kup a glare and though stunned himself the older bot reacted right away. He grabbed his apprentice by the elbow and forcibly moved him out of the way. Hot Rod protested quite vigorously, not wanting to be left out of the only excitement this place had seen since the last tectonic plate shift.

"Kid there is one thing you never do," Elita heard Kup say as she looked around the room for the chief medical officer. "Never get in-between a sparkling and its femme. You'll lose guaranteed every time."

"Everyone out!" Gurney commanded, only grabbing Firestar's arm before she made it out the door. "Not you! You're my assistant this cycle."

Elita thought that Firestar may have muttered some kind of an apology, but she wasn't paying attention. The sparkling had unveiled it's… her little optics. The tiny little thing had bidirectional optical coverings something few mature mechs had and when they had opened the optics that they revealed were a pale green. But that was not all that surprised Elita. The sparkling's face was exceptionally detailed and had more moving components than was strictly necessary for function.

"So what do we have here?" Gurney asked softly, drawing the sparkling's attention to her.

"Audio/visual response is normal," the CMO said with a smile and the little one responded by opening her mouth and optics wide. One tiny hand made it's way out of the blanket and wobbled in the air towards Gurney's face.

"Physical adaptation is well below normal," she continued on in the same soft voice even though Elita could tell that Gurney was concerned.

Elita reached over with her free hand and let the sparkling capture her finger. The petite fingers gripped with more strength than she would have thought given the obvious lack of motor control.

"Well, little one, what are we going to do with you?" Gurney asked, the sparkling's mouth quirked up in something that resembled a smile. "No external data inputs, no inter cranial communications to speak of, no transfer inputs. What was he thinking?"

"It _is_ going to make it, right?" Firestar asked anxiously.

"I'm not sure how it could without energy transfer inputs. How can we nourish it?"

"She," Elita interrupted. "Alpha Trion says that she's a femme."

"That's ridiculous!" Gurney scoffed. "Femme metamorphosis happens at first upgrade and this sparkling is nowhere near that stage."

Suddenly the CMO stopped and stared at the focus of everyone's attention. While the rest of them had been talking to each other, the sparkling had brought Elita's finger to her mouth. To their astonishment she was suckling on the digit. Gurney snatched up an internal systems scanner and passed it up and down the sparkling's length.

"It has an internal raw matter processing unit and a fully functional energon converter," the medical officer said with astonishment.

"I thought only mining drones had a matter processor?" Firestar questioned.

"And only mature femmes have internal energon converters," Elita reminded not being able to keep the smugness from her voice.

"Well apparently this little one has both," Gurney said with a grin. "Alright I concede that she might be a femme, a femme sparkling, who would have ever thought. Well this might not be as bad as I first feared. We'll just need to find the right mix of components necessary for her function and administer it orally and her systems should pick up from there."

"Where did she come from?" Firestar asked quietly reaching over to lightly touch the sparkling's hand were it still held Elita's finger in a tight grip.

Elita couldn't answer that question, and part of her didn't care. For the first time in eons there was a new sparkling, a sign of hope for their race. And something deep inside her told her that it was vitally important that this sparkling survive for all of their sakes.


End file.
